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jV. 

THE  BEGINNINGS 


AMERICAN    SCIENCE 

THE  THIRD  CENTURY. 


AN    ADDRESS   DELIVERED    AT   THE    EIGHTH    ANNIVERSARY 

MEETING   OF   THE    BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY 

OF   WASHINGTON. 


BROWN    GOODE 


PRESIDENT  OF  THE  SOCIETY. 


From  the  Proceedings  of  the  Biological  Society  of  Washington,  Volume  IV,  1886-1 


WASHINGTON  : 
PRINTED  FOR  THE  SOCIETY. 

1888. 


THE  BEGINNINGS 


OF 


AMERICAN    SCIENCE 

THE  THIRD  CENTURY. 


AN  .ADDRESS   DELIVERED   AT   THE    EIGHTH    ANNIVERSARY 

MEETING   OF   THE    BIOLOGICAL   SOCIETY 

OF   WASHINGTON. 


BY 


G.    BROWN   GOODE, 

PRESIDENT  OF  THE  SOCIETY. 


From  the  Proceedings  of  the   Biological  Society  of  Washington,  Volume  IV,  1886-1 


WASHINGTON  : 

PRINTED  FOR  THE  SOCIETY. 
1888. 


LOAN  STAC* 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  AMERICAN  SCIENCE.* 
THE  THIRD  CENTURY. 

BY  G.  BROWN  GOODE. 

VIII. 

In  the  address  which  it  was  my  privilege,  one  year  ago,  to  read 
in  the  presence  of  this  Society,  I  attempted  to  trace  the  progress 
of  scientific  activity  in  America  from  the  time  of  the  first  settle- 
ment by  the  English  in  1505  to  the  end  of  the  Revolution — a 
period  of  nearly  two  hundred  years. 

Resuming  the  subject,  I  shall  now  take  up  the  consideration 
of  the  third  century — from  1782  to  the  present  time.  For  con- 
venience of  discussion  the  time  is  divided,  approximately,  into 
decades,  while  the  decades  naturally  fall  into  gioups  of  three. 
From  1780  to  1810,  from  1810  to  1840,  from  1840  to  1870,  and 
from  1870  to  the  close  of  tho  century,  are  periods  in  the  history 
of  American  thought,  each  of  which  seems  to  be  marked  by 
characteristics  of  its  own.  These  must  have  names,  and  it  may 
not  be  inappropriate  to  call  the  first  the  period  of  Jefferson,  the 
second  that  of  Silliman,  and  the  1hird  that  of  Agassiz. 

The  first  was,  of  course,  an  extension  of  the  period  of  Linnaeus, 
the  second  and  third  were  during  the  mental  supremacy  of  Cuvier 
and  Von  Baer  and  their  schools,  and  the  fourth  or  present,  begin- 
ing  in  1870,  belongs  to  that  of  Darwin,  the  extension  of  whose 
influence  to  America  was  delayed  by  the  tumults  of  the  civil  con- 
vulsion which  began  in  1861  and  ended  in  1865. 

The  "  beginnings  of  American  science"  do  not  belong  entirely 

*  Annual  Presidential  Address  delivered  at  the  Seventh  Anniversary 
Meeting  of  the  Biological  Society  ot  Washington,  January  22,  1887,  in 
the  Lecture  Room  of  the  U.  S.  National  Museum. 


/27 

u 

& 


151 


10  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

to  the  past.  Our  science  is  still  in  its  youth,  and  in  the  discus- 
sion of  its  history  I  shall  not  hesitate  to  refer  to  institutions  and 
to  tendencies  which  are  of  very  recent  origin. 

It  is  somewhat  unfortunate  that  the  account  book  of  national 
progress  was  so  thoroughly  balanced  in  the  Centennial  year.  It 
is  true  that  the  movement  which  resulted  in  the  birth  of  our  Re- 
public first  took  tangible  form  in  17765  but  the  infant  nation  was 
not  born  until  1783,  when  the  treaty  of  Paris  was  signed,  and 
lay  in  swaddling  clothes  until  1789,  when  the  Constitution  was 
adopted  by  the  thirteen  States. 

In  those  days  our  forefathers  had  quite  enough  to  do  in  adapt- 
ing their  lives  to  the  changed  conditions  of  existence.  The 
masses  were  struggling  for  securer  positions  near  home,  or  were 
pushing  out  beyond  the  frontiers  to  find  dwelling-places  for  them- 
selves and  their  descendants.  The  men  of  education  were  in- 
volved in  political  discussions  as  fierce,  uncandid,  and  unphilo- 
sophical  in  spirit  as  those  which  preceded  the  French  revolution 
of  the  same  period. 

The  master  minds  were  absorbed  in  political  and  administra- 
tive problems,  and  had  little  time  for  the  peaceful  pursuits  of 
science,  and  many  of  the  men  who  were  prominent  in  science — 
Franklin,  Jefferson,  Rush,  Mite  hill,  Seybert,  Williamson,  Mor- 
gan, Clinton,  Rittenhouse,  Patterson,  Williams,  Cutler,  Ma- 
rlure,  and  others — were  elected  to  Congress  or  called  to  other 
positions  of  official  responsibility. 

IX. 

The  literary  and  scientific  activities  of  the  infant  nation  were 
for  many  years  chiefly  concentrated  in  Philadelphia,  until  1800 
the  federal  capital  and  largest  of  American  cities.  Here,  after 
the  return  of  Franklin  from  France  in  1785,  the  meetings  of  the 
American  Philosophical  Society  were  resumed.  Franklin  con- 
tinued to  be  its  president  until  his  death  in  1790,  at  the  same 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  11 

time  holding  the  presidency  of  the  commonwealth  of  Pennsyl- 
vania, and  a  seat  in  the  Constitutional  Convention.  The  pres- 
tige of  its  leader  doubtless  gave  to  the  Society  greater  promi- 
nence than  its  scientific  objects  alone  would  have  secured. 

In  the  reminiscences  of  Dr.  Manasseh  Cutler  there  is  to  be 
found  an  admirable  picture  of  Franklin  in  1787.  As  we  read  it 
we  are  taken  back  into  the  very  presence  of  the  philosopher  and 
statesman,  and  can  form  a  very  clear  appreciation  of  the  scien- 
tific atmosphere  which  surrounded  the  scientific  leaders  of  the 
post- Revolutionary  period. 

Dr.  Cutler  wrote : 

"  Dr.  Franklin  lives  on  Market  street.  His  house  stands  up  a 
court  at  some  distance  from  the  street.  We  found  him  in  his 
garden  sitting  upon  a  grass-plot,  under  a  large  mulberry  tree, 
with  several  gentlemen  and  two  or  three  ladies.  When  Mr. 
Gerry  introduced  me  he  rose  from  his  chair,  took  me  by  the 
hand,  expressed  his  joy  at  seeing  me,  welcomed  me  to  the  city, 
and  begged  me  to  seat  myself  close  by  him.  His  voice  was  low, 
his  countenance  open,  frank,  and  pleasing.  I  delivered  to  him 
my  letters.  After  he  had  read  them  he  took  me  again  by  the 
hand  and.  with  the  usual  compliments,  introduced  me  to  the 
other  gentlemen,  who  are,  most  of  them,  members  of  the  Con- 
vention. Here  we  entered  into  a  free  conversation,  and  spent  the 
time  most  agreeably  until  it  was  quite  dark.  The  tea-table  was 
spread  under  the  tree,  and  Mrs.  Bache,  who  is  the  only  daughter 
of  the  Doctor  and  lives  with  him,  served  it  to  the  company. 

••  The  Doctor  showed  me  a  curiosity  which  he  had  just  received 
and  with  which  he  was  much  pleased.  It  was  a  snake  with  two 
heads,  preserved  in  a  large  vial.  It  was  about  ten  inches  long, 
well  proportioned,  the  heads  perfect,  and  united  to  the  body  about 
one-fourth  of  an  inch  below  the  extremities  of  the  jaws.  He 
showed  me  a  drawing  of  one  entirely  similar,  found  near  Lake 
Champlain.  He  spoke  of  the  situation  of  this  snake  if  it  was 
travelling  among  bushes,  and  one  head  should  choose  to  go  on  one 
side  of  the  stem  of  a  bush  and  the  other  head  should  prefer  the 
other  side,  and  neither  head  would  consent  to  come  back  or  give 
way  to  the  other.  He  was  then  going  to  mention  a  humorous 
matter  that  had  that  day  occurred  in  the  Convention  in  conse- 
quence of  his  comparing  the  snake  to  America ;  for  he  seemed 
to  forget  that  everything  in  the  Convention  was  to  be  kept  a  pro- 
found secret.  But  this  was  suggested  to  him,  and  I  was  deprived 
of  the  storv. 


12  BIOLOGICAL    SOOCETY    OF   WASHINGTON. 

"  After  it  was  dark  we  went  into  the  house,  and  he  invited  me  to 
his  library,  which  is  likewise  his  study.  It  is  a  very  large  cham- 
ber and  high-studded.  The  walls  are  covered  with  shelves  filled 
with  books  ;  beside  these,  four  large  alcoves,  extending  two-thirds 
the  length  of  the  chamber,  fdled  in  the  same  manner.  I  presume 
this  is  the  largest  and  by  far  the  best  private  library  in  America. 
He  showed  me  a  glass  machine  for  exhibiting  the  circulation  of 
the  blood  in  the  arteries  and  veins  of  the  human  body.  'The  cir- 
culation is  exhibited  by  the  passing  of  a  red  fluid  from  a  reservoir 
into  numerous  capillary  tubes  of  glass,  ramified  in  every  direction, 
and  then  returning  in  similar  tubes  to  the  reservoir,  which  was 
clone  with  great  velocity,  and  without  any  power  acting  visibly 
upon  the  fluid,  and  had  the  appearance  of  perpetual  motion. 
Another  great  curiosity  was  a  rolling  press  for  taking  copies  of 
letters  or  other  writing.  A  sheet  of  paper  is  completely  copied 
in  two  minutes,  the  copy  as  fair  as  the  original,  and  without  de- 
facing it  in  the  smallest  degree.  It  is  an  invention  of  his  own, 
extremely  useful  in  many  circumstances  of  life.  He  also  showed 
us  his  long  artificial  hand  and  arm  for  taking  down  and  putting 
up  books  on  high  shelves,  out  of  reach,  and  his  great  arm-chair, 
with  rockers  and  a  large  fan  placed  over  it,  with  which  he  fans 
himself,  while  he  sits  reading,  with  only  a  slight  motion  of  the 
foot,  and  many  other  curiosities  and  inventions,  all  his  own,  but 
of  lesser  note.  Over  his  mantel  he  has  :i  prodigious  number  of 
medals,  busts,  and  casts  in  wax  or  plast  v  of  Paris,  which  are  the 
effigies  of  the  most  noted  characters  of  Europe.  But  what  the 
Doctor  wished  especially  to  show  me  was  a  huge  volume  on  bot- 
any, which  indeed  afforded  me  the  greatest  pleasure  of  any  one 
thing  in  liis  library.  It  was  a  single  volume,  but  so  large  that  it 
was  with  great  difficulty  that  he  was  able  to  raise  it  from  a  low 
shelf  arid  lift  it  1o  the  table  ;  but,  with  that  senile  ambition  which 
is  common  to  old  people  (Dr.  Franklin  was  eighty-one),  he  in- 
sisted on  doing  it  himself,  and  would  permit  no  one  to  assist  him, 
merely  to  show  how  much  strength  he  had  remaining.  It  con- 
tained the  whole  of  Linnaeus's  Systema  Vegetabilium,  with  large 
cuts  colored  from  nature  of  every  plant.  It  was  a  feast  to  me, 
and  the  Doctor  seemed  to  enjoy  it  as  well  as  myself.  We  spent 
a  couple  of  hours  examining  this  volume,  While  the  other  gentle- 
men amused  themselves  with  other  matters.  The  Doctor  is  not 
a  botanist,  but  lamented  he  did  not  in  early  life  attend  to  this 
science.  He  delights  in  natural  history,  and  expressed  an  earnest 
wish  that  I  should  pursue  a  plan  I  had  begun,  and  hoped  this 
science,  so  much  neglected  in  America,  would  be  pursued  with 
as  much  ardor  here  as  it  is  now  in  every  part  of  Europe.  I 
wanted,  for  three  months  at  least,  to  have  devoted  myself  entirely 
to  this  one  volume,  but,  fearing  lest  I  should  become  tedious  to 
him,  I  shut  the  book,  though  he  urged  me  to  examine  it  longer. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  13 

He  seemed  extremely  fond,  through  the  course  of  the  visit,  of 
dwelling  on  philosophical  subjects,  and  particularly  that  of  natu- 
ral history,  while  the  other  gentlemen  were  swallowed  up  in  poli- 
tics. This  was  a  favorable  circumstance  to  me,  for  almost  all  his 
conversation  was  addressed  to  me,  and  I  was  highly  delighted 
with  the  extensive  knowledge  he  appeared  to  possess  of  every 
subject,  the  brightness  of  his  faculties,  the  clearness  and  vivacity 
of  his  mental  powers,  and  the  strength  of  his  memory,  notwith- 
standing his  age.  His  manners  are  perfectly  easy,  and  everything 
about  him  seems  to  diffuse  an  unrestrained  freedom  and  happi- 
ness. He  has  an  incessant  vein  of  humor,  accompanied  with  an 
uncommon  vivacity  that  seems  as  natural  and  involuntary  as  his 
breathing." 

To  Franklin,  as  President  of  the  Philosophical  Society,  suc- 
ceeded David  Rittenhouse  [b.  1732,  d.  1796]^  man  of  world-wide 
reputation,  known  in  his  day  as  "  the  American  Philosopher."* 

He  was  an  astronomer  of  repute,  and  his  observatory  built  at 
Norriton  in  preparation  for  the  transit  of  Venus  in  1769  seems  to 
have  been  the  first  in  America.  His  orrery,  constructed  upon  an 
original  plan,  was  one  of  the  wonders  of  the  land.  His  most 
important  contribution  to  astronomy  was  the  introduction  of  the 
use  of  spider  lines  in  the  focus  of  transit  instruments.! 

He  was  an  amateur  botanist,  and  in  1771  made  interesting 
physiological  experiments  upon  the  electric  eel.J 

He  was  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  of  London,  and  the 
first  Director  of  the  United  States  Mint. 

Next  in  prominence  to  Franklin  and  Rittenhouse  were  doubt- 
less the  medical  professors,  Benjamin  Rush,  William  Shippen, 
John  Morgan,  Adam  Kuhn,  Samuel  Powell  Griffiths,  and  Cas- 
par Wistar,  all  men  of  scientific  tastes,  but  too  busy  in  pub- 
lic affairs  and  in  medical  instruction  to  engage  deeply  in  research, 
for  Philadelphia,  in  those  days  as  at  present,  insisted  that  all 

*  See  obituary  in  the  European  Magazine,  July,  1796;  also  Memoiis 
of  Rittenhouse,  by  WILLIAM  BARTON,  1813,  and  Eulogium  by  Benjamin 
Rush,  1796. 

t  VON  ZACH  :  Monatliche  Correspondenz,  ii,  p.  215. 

\  Phila.  Medical  Repository,  vol.  I. 


14  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

her  naturalists  should  be  medical  professors,  and  the  active  inves- 
tigators, outside  of  medical  science,  were  not  numerous.  Rush, 
however,  was  one  of  the  earliest  American  writers  upon  eth- 
nology, and  a  pathologist  of  the  highest  rank.  He  is  generally 
referred  to  as  the  earliest  professor  of  chemistry,  having  been 
appointed  to  the  chair  of  chemistry  in  the  College  of  Philadel- 
phia in  1769;  it  seems  certain,  however,  that  Dr.  John  Morgan 
lectured  on  chemistry  as  early  as  1765.* 

Dr.  Shippen  [b.  1735,  d.  1808],  the  founder  of  the  first 
medical  school  [1765]  and  its  professor  of  anatomy  for  forty- 
three  years,  was  still  in  his  prime,  and  so  was  Dr.  Morgan 
[b.  1735,  d.  1789],  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society,  a  co-founder 
of  the  medical  school,  and  a  frequent  contributor  to  the  Philo- 
sophical Transactions.  Morgan  was  an  eminent  pathologist, 
and  is  said  to  have  been  the  one  to  originate  the  theory  of  the 
formation  of  pus  by  the  secretory  action  of  the  vessels  of  the 
part.f  He  appears  to  have  been  the  first  who  attempted  to 
form  a  museum  of  anatomy,  having  learned  the  methods  of 
preparation  from  the  Hunters  and  from  Sue  in  Paris.  The 
beginning  was  still  earlier  known,  for  a  collection  of  anatomical 
models  in  wax,  obtained  by  Dr.  Abraham  Chovet  in  Paris,  was 
in  use  by  Philadelphia  medical  students  before  the  Revolution.} 

Another  of  the  physicians  of  colonial  days  who  lived  until 
after  the  revolution  was  Dr.  Thomas  Cadwallader  [b.  1707, 
d.  1779],  whose  dissections  are  said  to  have  been  among  the 
earliest  made  in  America,  and  whose  "  Essay  on  the  West 
India  Dry  Gripes,"  i775i  was  one  °f  the  earliest  medical  trea- 
tises in  America. 

Dr.   Caspar  Wistar   [b.    1761,   d.    1818]    was   also    a.  leader, 

*  BARTON'S  Memoirs  of  Rittenhouse,  p.  614. 
t  THACHER.     American  Medical  Biography,  i.  p.  408. 
J  This  eventually  became  the  property  of  the  University.     See  Barton's 
Rittenhouse,  p.  377.     Trans.  Amer.  Phil,  fcoc.,  ii,  p.  368. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  15 

and  was  at  various  times  professor  of  chemistry  and  anatomy. 
His  contributions  to  natural  history  were  descriptions  of  bones  of 
Megalonyx  and  other  mammals,  a  study  of  the  human  ethmoid, 
and  experiments  on  evaporation.  He  was  long  Vice-President  of 
the  Philosophical  Society,  and  in  1815  succeeded  Jefferson  in  its 
presidency.  The  Wistar  Anatomical  Museum  of  the  University 
and  the  beautiful  climbing  shrub  Wistaria  are  among  the  me- 
morials to  his  name.* 

Still  another  memorial  of  the  venerable  naturalist  may  per- 
haps be  worthy  of  mention  as  an  illustration  of  the  social  condi- 
tions of  science  in  Philadelphia  in  early  days.  A  traveller  visit- 
ing the  city  in  1829  thus  described  this  institution,  which  was 
continued  until  the  late  war,  and  then  discontinued,  but  has  been 
resumed  within  the  last  year  : 

"  Dr.  Wistar  in  his  lifetime  had  a  party  of  his  liteVary  and  sci- 
entific friends  at  his  house,  one  evening  in  each  week,  and  to  this 
party  strangers  visiting  the  city  were  also  invited.  When  he  died, 
the  same  party  was  continued,  and  the  members  of  the  Wistar 
party,  in  their  turn,  each  have  a  meeting  of  the  club  at  his  house, 
on  some  Saturday  night  in  the  year.  This  club  consists  of  the 
men  most  distinguished  in  science,  art,  literature,  and  wealth  in 
the  city.  It  opens  at  early  candle-light,  when  not  only  the  mem- 
bers themselves  appear,  but  they  bring  with  them  all  the  strangers 
of  distinction  in  the  city."| 

The  "  Wistar  parties"  were  continued  up  to  the  beginning  of 
the  civil  war  in  1861,  and  have  been  resumed  since  1887.  A 
history  of  these  gatherings  would  cover  a  period  of  three-quarters 
of  a  century  at  the  least,  and  could  be  made  a  most  valuable  and 
entertaining  contribution  to  scientific  literature. 

Packard,  in  his  History  of  Zoology, \  states  that  zoology,  the 
world  over,  has  sprung  from  the  study  of  human  anatomy,  and 


*  HOSACK  :  Tribute  to  the  Memory  of  Wistar,  New  York,  1818. 
t  ATWATER  :  Remarks  made  on  a  tour  to  Prairie  du  Chien ;  thence  to 
Washington  City,  in  1829.     Columbus,  1831,  p.  238. 
J  Standard  Natural  History,  pp.  Ixii-lxxii. 


1'6  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

that  American  zoology  took  its  rise,  and  was  fostered  chiefly, 
in  Philadelphia,  by  the  professors  in  the  medical  schools. 

It  was  fully  demonstrated,  I  think,  in  my  former  address,  that 
there  were  good  zoologists  in  America  long  before  there  were 
medical  schools,. and  that  Philadelphia  was  not  the  cradle  of 
American  natural  history ;  although,  during  its  period  of  polit- 
ical pre-eminence,  immediately  after  the  Revolution,  scientific 
activities  of  all  kinds  centred  in  that  city.  As  for  the  medical 
schools  it  is  at  least  probable  that  they  have  spoiled  more  nat- 
uralists than  they  have  fostered. 

Dr.  Adam  Kuhn  [b.  1741,  d.  1817]  was  the  professor  of 
botany  in  1768* — the  first  in  America — and  was  labeled  by  his 
contemporaries  "  the  favorite  pupil  of  Linnreus."  Professor 
Gray,  in  a  recent  letter  to  the  writer,  refers  to  this  saying  as  a 
k'myth;"  and  it  surely  seems  strange  that  a  disciple  be- 
loved by  the  great  Swede  could  have  done  so  little  for  botany. 
Barton,  in  a  letter,  in  1792,  to  Thunberg,  who  then  occupied 
the  seat  of  Linnaeus  in  the  University  of  Upsala,  said : 

k'  The  electricity  of  your  immortal  Linne  has  hardly  been  felt 
in  this  Ultima  Thule  of  science.  Had  a  number  of  the  pupils  of 
that  great  man  settled  in  North  America  its  riches  would  have 
been  better  known.  But,  alas  !  the  only  one  pupil  of  your  prede- 
cessor that  has  made  choice  of  America  as  the  place  of  his  resi- 
dence has  added  nothing  to  the  stock  of  natural  knowledge."! 

The  Rev.  Nicholas  Collin,  Rector  of  the  Swedish  Churches 
in  Pennsylvania,  was  a  fellow-countryman  and  acquaintance  of 
Linnaeus  \  and  an  accomplished  botanist,  having  been  one  of  the 
editors  of  Muhlenberg's  work  upon  the  grasses  and  an  early 
writer  on  American  linguistics.  He  read  before  the  Philo- 
sophical Society,  in  1789,  "An  Essay  on  those  inquiries  in 

*  See  p.  99,  ante. 

fB.  S.  BARTON,  in  Transactions  American  Philosophical  Society,  iii, 
P-  339- 

t  "  I  often  heard  the  great  Linnaeus  wish  that  he  could  have  explored 
the  continent  of  North  America."  COLLIN:  Trans.  Amer.  Phil.  Soc.,  iii, 
p.  xv. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  17 

Natural  Philosophy  which  at  present  are  most  beneficial  to  the 
Uni'od  States  of  North  America,"  which  was  the  first  attempt 
to  lay  out  a  systematic  plan  for  the  direction  of  scientific  re- 
search in  America.  One  of  the  most  interesting  suggestions  he 
made  was  that  the  Mammoth  was  still  in  existence. 

"  The  vast  Mahmot,"  said  he,  "  is  perhaps  yet  stalking  through 
the  western  wilderness ;  but  if  he  is  no  more  let  us  carefully 
gather  his  remains,  and  even  try  to  find  a  new  skeleton  of  this 
giant,  to  whom  the  elephant  was  but  a  calf."  * 

Gen.  Jonathan  Williams,  U.  S.  A.  [b.  1750,0!.  1815],  was  first 
superintendent  of  the  Military  Academy  at  West  Point  and 
"  father  of  the  corps  of  engineers."  He  was  a  nephew  of 
Franklin,  and  his  secretary  of  legation  in  France,  and,  after 
his"  return  to  Philadelphia,  was  for  many  years  a  judge  of  the 
court  of  common  pleas,  his  military  career  not  beginning  till 
1801.  This  versatile  man  was  a  leading  member  of  the  Phil- 
osophical Society  and  one  of  its  Vice-Presidents.  His  paper 
"  On  the  Use  of  the  Thermometer  in  Navigation  "  was  one  of  the 
first  American  contributions  to  scientific  seamanship. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  John  Ewing  [b.  1732,  d.  1802],  also  a  Vice- 
President,  was  Provost  of  the  University.  He  had  been  one  of 
the  observers  of  the  transit  in  1769,  of  which  he  published  an 
account  in  the  Transactions  of  the  Philosophical  Society.  He 
early  printed  a  volume  of  lectures  on  Natural  Philosophy,  and 
was  the  strongest  champion  of  John  Godfrey,  the  Philadelphia!!, 
in  his  claim  to  the  invention  of  the  reflecting  quad  rant,  f 

*  /</.,  p.  xxiv. 

t" Thomas  Godfrey,"  says  a  recent  authority,  "was  born  in  Bristol. 
Penn.,  in  1704,  and  died  in  Philadelphia  in  December,  1749.  He  followed 
the  trade  of  a  glazier  in  the  metropolis,  and,  having  a  fondness  for  mathe- 
matical studies,  marked  such  books  as  he  met  with,  subsequently  acquir- 
ing Latin,  that  he  might  become  familiar  with  the  mathematical  work  in 
that  language.  Having  obtained  a  copy  of  Newton's  '  Principia,'  he  de- 
scribed an  improvement  he  had  made  in  Davis'  quadrant  to  James  Logan, 


18  BIOLOGICAL,  SOCIETY   OB   WASHINGTON. 

Dr.  James  Woodhouse  [b.  1770,  d.  1809]  was  author  and  ed- 
itor of  several  chemical  text-books  and  Professor  of  Chemistry  in 
the  University,  a  position  which  he  took  after  it  had  been  refused 
by  Priestley.  He  made  experiments  and  observations  on  the 
vegetation  of  plants,  and  investigated  the  chemical  and  medical 
properties  of  the  persimmon  tree.  He  it  was  who  first  demon- 
strated the  superiority  of  anthracite  to  bituminous  coal  by  reason 
of  its  intensity  and  regularity  of  heating  power.* 

The  Rev.  Ebenezer  Kinnersley  [b.  in  Gloucester,  England, 
Nov.  30,  1711,  d.  in  Philadelphia,  July  4,  1778]  survived  the 
Revolution,  though,  in  his  latter  years,  not  a  contributor  to 
science.  The  associate  of  Franklin  in  "  the  Philadelphia  Ex- 
periments "  in  electricity,  his  discoveries  were  famous  in  Europe 
as  well  as  in  America.!  It  is  claimed  that  he  originated  the 
theory  of  the  positive  and  negative  in  electricity ;  that  he  first 
demonstrated  the  passage  of  electricity  through  water ;  and  that 
he  first  discovered  that  heat  could  be  produced  by  electricitv  ; 
besides  inventing  numerous  mechanical  devices  of  scientific 
interest.  From  1753  to  1772  he  was  connected  with  the 
University  of  Pennsylvania,  where  there  may  still  be  seen  a 
window  dedicated  to  his  memory. 

Having  already  referred  to  the  history  of  scientific  instruction 
in  America,^  and  shown  that  Hunter  lectured  on  comparative 
anatomy  in  Newport  in  1754;  Kuhn  on  Botany,  in  Philadel- 
phia, in  1768,  Waterhouse  on  natural  history  and  botany,  at 
Cambridge,  in  1788"  and  some  unidentified  scholars  upon  chem- 
istry and  natural  history,  in  Philadelphia,  in  1785,  it  would 
seem  unjust  not  to  speak  of  Kinnersley's  career  as  a  lecturer. 


who  was  so  impressed  that  he  at  once  addressed  a  letter  to  Edmund  Halley 
in  England,  giving  a  full  description  of  the  construction  and  uses  of  God- 
frey's instrument."  % 

*  SITJLIMAN:  American  Contributions  to  Chemistry,  p.  13. 
t  See  Priestley's  History  of  Electricity. 
\  P.  99,  ante. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  19 

He  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  deliver  public  scientific  lec- 
tures in  America,  occupying  the  platform  in  Philadelphia,  New- 
port, New  York,  and  Boston,  from  1751  to  the  beginning  of 
the  Revolution.  The  following  advertisement  was  printed  in 
the  "Pennsylvania  Gazette"  for  April  n,  1751: 

NOTICE  is  hereby  given  to  the  Curious  that  Wednesday  next 
Mr.  Kinnersley  proposes  to  begin  a  Course  of  Experiments  on  the 
newly-discovered  Electrical  fife,  containing  not  only  the  most 
curious  of  those  that  have  been  made  and  published  in  Europe, 
but  a  considerable  Number  of  New  Ones  lately  made  in  this  City, 
to  be  accompanied  with  methodical  Lectures  on  the  Nature  and 
Properties  of  that  Wonderful  Element. 

Francis  Hopkinson  [b.  1737,  d.  1791],  signer  of  the  Declar- 
ation of  Independence,  was  treasurer  of  the  Philosophical 
Society,  and  among  other  papers  communicated  by  him  was 
one  in  1783,  calling  attention  to  the  peculiar  worm  parasitic  in 
the  eye  of  a  horse.  The  "  horse  with  a  snake  in  its  eye"  was 
on  public  exhibition  in  Philadelphia  in  1782,  and  was  the 
object  of  much  attention,  for  the  nature  and  habits  of  this  peculiar 
Filaria  were  not  so  well  understood  then  as  now. 

The  father  of  Francis,  Thomas  Hopkinson  [b.  in  London, 
1709,  d.  in  Philadelphia,  1751],  who  was  overlooked  in  my 
previous  address,  deserves,  at  least,  a  passing  mention.  Coining 
to  Philadelphia  in  1731  he  became  lawyer >(prothonotary,  Judge 
of  the  Admiralty,  and  member  of  the  Provincial  Council.  As 
an  incorporator  of  the  Philadelphia  Library  Company,  and  origi- 
nal trustee  of  the  College  of  Philadelphia,  and  first  President 
of  the  American  Philosophical  Society  in  1743,  his  public  spirit 
is  worthy  of  our  admiration.  He  was  associated  with  Kin- 
nersley and  Franklin  in  the  "  Philadelphia  Experiments;"  and 
Franklin  said  of  him : 

44  The  power  of  points  to  throw  off  the  electrical  fire  was  first 
communicated  to  me  by  my  ingenious  friend,  Mr.  Thomas  Hop- 
kinson."* 

*  WILSON  &  FISKE  :  Cyclopaedia  of  American  Biography,  iii,  260. 


"20  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

The  name  of  Philip  Syng  is  also  mentioned  in  connection 
with  the  Philadelphia  experiments,  and  it  would  be  well  if  some 
memorials  of  his  work  could  be  placed  upon  record. 

William  Bartram  [b.  1739,  d.  1823]  was  living  in  the  famous 
botanical  garden  at  Kingsessing,  which  his  father,  the  old  King's 
botanist,  had  bequeathed  him  in  1777.  He  was  for  some  years 
professor  of  botany  in  the  Philadelphia  college,  and  in  1791 
printed  his  charming  volume  descriptive  of  his  travels  in  Flor- 
ida, the  Carolinas,  and  Georgia.  The  latter  years  of  his  life 
appear  to  have  been  devoted  to  quiet  observation.  William 
Bartram  has  been,  perhaps,  as  much  underrated  as  John  Bar- 
tram  has  been  unduly  exalted.  He  was  one  of  the  best  observ- 
ers America  has  ever  produced,  and  his  book,  which  rapidly 
passed  through  several  editions  in  English  and  French,  is  a 
classic  and  should  stand  beside  White's  "  Selborne  "  in  every 
naturalist's  library.  Bartram  was  doubtless  discouraged  early 
in  his  career  by  the  failure  of  his  patrons  in  London  to  make  any 
scientific  use  of  the  immense  botanical  collections  made  by  him  in 
the  South  before  the  Revolution,  which,  many  years  later,  was 
lying  unutilized  in  the  Banksian  herbarium.  Coues  has  called 
attention  very  emphatically  to  the  merits  of  his  bird  work,  which 
he  pronounces  "  the  starting-point  of  a  distinctly  American 
school  of  ornithology."  Two  of  the  most  eminent  of  our  early 
zoologists,  Wilson  and  Say,  were  his  pupils  ;  the  latter  his  kins- 
man,'and  the  former  his  neighbor,  were  constantly  with  him  at 
Kingsessing  and  drew  much  of  their  inspiration  from  his  conver- 
sation. "  Many  birds  which  Wilson  first  fully  described  and 
figured  were  really  named  and  figured  by  Bartram  in  his 
Travels,  and  several  of  his  designations  were  simply  adopted 
by  Wilson."* 

Bartram's  "  Observations  on  the  Creek  and  Cherokee  Indians  "f 

*  COUES  :  Key  to  North  American  Birds,  p.  xvi 
t  Trans.  Am.  Ethnological  Society,  iii,  1851. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  21 

was  an  admirable  contribution  to  ethnography,  and  his  general 
observations  were  of  the  highest  value. 

In  the  introduction  to  his  "  Travels,"  and  interspersed  through 
this  volume,  are  reflections  which  show  him  to  have  been  the 
possessor  of  a  very  philosophic  and  original  mind. 

His  "Anecdotes  of  an  American  Crow  "  and  his  "  Memoirs 
of  John  Bartram  "*  were  worthy  products  of  his  pen,  while  his 
illustrations  to  Barton's  "  Elements  of  Botany  "  show  how 
facile  and  truthful  was  his  pencil. 

His  love  for  botany  was  such,  we  are  told,  that  he  wrote  a 
description  of  a  plant  only  a  few  minutes  before  his  death,  a 
statement  which  will  be  readily  believed  by  all  who  know  the 
nature  of  his  enthusiasm.  Thus,  for  instance,  he  wrote  of  the 
Venus's  Fly  Trap : 

"Admirable  are  the  properties  of  the  extraordinary  Dionaea  mus- 
cipula  !  See  the  incarnate  lobes  expanding  ;  how  gay  and  sportive 
they  appear  !  ready  on  the  spring  to  entrap  incautious,  deluded  in- 
sects !  What  artifice  !  There  !  behold  one  of  the  leaves  just  closed 
upon  a  struggling  fly  ;  another  has  gotten  a  worm  ;  its  hold  is  sure  ; 
its  prey  can  never  escape — carnivorous  vegetable  !  Can  we,  after 
viewing  this  object,  hesitate  for  a  moment  to  confess  that  vegeta- 
ble beings  are  endowed  with  some  sensible  faculties  or  attributes 
similar  to  those  that  dignify  animal  nature?  They  are  living,  or- 
ganical.  and  self-moving  bodies  ;  for  we  see  here  in  this  plant 
motion  and  volition. "f 

Moses  Bartram,  a  cousin  of  William,  and  also  a  botanist,  was 
also  living  near  Philadelphia,  and  in  1879  published  ^Observa- 
tions on  the  Native  Silk  Worms  of  North  America,"  and  Hum- 
phrey Marshall  [1722-1801],  the  farmer-botanist,  had  a  botanical 
garden  of  his  own,  and  in  1785  published  "  The  American 
Grove — Arbustrium  Americanum  " — a  treatise  on  the  forest  trees 
and  shrubs  of  the  United  States,  which  was  the  first  strictly 

*  Nicholson's  Journal,  1805. 
f  Travels,  1793,  p.  xiv. 


22  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

American  botanical  book,  and  which  was  republished  in  France 
a  few  years  later  in  1789. 

Gotthilf  Muhlenberg  [b.  1753,  d.  1815],  a  Lutheran  clergy- 
man, living  at  Lancaster,  was  an  eminent  botanist,  educated  in 
Germany,  though  a  native  of  Pennsylvania.  His  "  Flora  of  Lan- 
caster" was  a  pioneer  work  In  1813  he  published  a  full  cata- 
logue of  the  Plants  of  North  America,  in  which  about  2,800 
species  were  mentioned.  He  supplied  Hedwig  with  many  of  the 
rare  American  mosses,  which  were  published  either  in  "  Stirpes 
Cryptogamicae  "  of  that  author  or  in  the  "  Species  Muscorum." 
To  Sir  J.  E.  Smith  and  Mr.  Dawson  Turner  he  likewise  sent 
many  plants.  He  made  extensive  preparations,  writing  a  gen- 
eral flora  of  North  America,  but  death  interfered  with  his*  pro- 
ject. The  American  Philosophical  Society  preserves  his  her- 
barium, and  the  moss  Funeria  Muhlenbergii,  the  violet,  Viola 
Muhlcnbergii,  and  the  grass  Muhlenbergia,  are  among  the 
memorials  to  his  name.* 

To  Pennsylvania,  but  not  to  Philadelphia,  came,  in  1794, 
Joseph  Priestley  (1733-1804),  the  philosopher,  theologian,  and 
chemist.  Although  his  name  is  more  famous  in  the  history 
of  chemistry  than  that  of  any  living  contemporary,  American 
or  European,  his  work  was  nearly  finished  before  he  left  Eng- 
land. He  never  entered  into  the  scientific  life  of  the  country 
which  he  sought  as  an  exile,  and  of  which  he  never  became 
a  citizen,  and  he  is  not  properly  to  be  considered  an  element 
in  the  history  of  American  science. 

His  coming,  however,  was  an  event  of  considerable  political 
importance;  and  William  Cobbett's  "  Observations  on  the  Em- 
igration of  Doctor  Joseph  Priestley.  By  Peter  Porcupine,"  was 
followed  by  several  other  pamphlets  equally  vigorous  in  ex- 
pression. McMaster  is  evidently  unjust  to  some  of  the  public 

*  HOOKER  :  On  the  Botany  of  America.  Edinburgh  Journal  of  Science, 
iii,  p.  103,  et  seq. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  23 

men  who  welcomed  Priestley  to  America,  though  no  one  will 
deny  that  there  were  unprincipled  demagogues  in  America  in 
the  year  of  grace  1794.  Jefferson  was  undoubtedly  sincere  when 
he  wrote  to  him  the  words  quoted  elsewhere  in  this  address. 

Another  eminent  exile,  welcomed  by  Jefferson,  and  the  writer, 
at  the  President's  request,  o"  a  work  on  national  education  in  the 
United  States,  was  M.  Pierre  Samuel  Dupont  de  Nemours  [b.  in 
Paris,  1799,  d.  1817].  He  was  a  member  of  the  Institute  of 
France,  a  statesman,  diplomatist,  and  political  economist,  and 
author  of  many  important  works.  He  lived  in  the  United  States 
at  various  times,  from  1799  to  1817,  when  he  died  near 
Wilmington,  Delaware.  Like  Priestley,  he  was  a  member  of  the 
American  Philosophical  Society,  and  affiliated  with  its  leading 
members. 

The  gunpowder  works  near  Wilmington,  Delaware,  founded 
by  his  son  in  1798,  are  still  of  great  importance,  and  the  statue 
of  one  of  his  grandsons,  an  Admiral  in  the  U.  S.  Navy,  adorns 
one  of  the  principal  squares  in  the  National  Capital. 

Among  other  notable  names  on  the  roll  of  the  society,  in  the 
last  century,  were  those  of  Gen.  Anthony  Wayne  and  Thomas 
Payne.  His  Excellency  General  Washington  was  also  an  active 
member,  and  seems  to  have  taken  sufficient  interest  in  the  society 
to  nominate  for  foreign  membership  the  Earl  of  Buchan,  Presi- 
dent of  the  Society  of  Scottish  Antiquarians,  and  Dr.  James  An- 
derson, of  Scotland. 

The  following  note  written  by  Washington  is  published  in  the 
Memoirs  of  Rittenhouse  : 

"  The  President  presents  his  compliments  to  Mr.  Rittenhouse, 
and  thanks  him  for  the  attention  he  has  given  to  the  case  of  Mr. 
Anderson  and  the  Earl  of  Buchan. 

"  SUNDAY  AFTERNOOX,  2otk  April*  1794." 

Of  all  the  Philadelphia  naturalists  of  those  early  days,  the  one 
who  had  the  most  salutary  influence  upon  the  progress  of  science 


24  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF   WASHINGTON. 

was,  perhaps,  Benjamin  Smith  Barton  [b.  1766,  d.  1815.] 
Barton  was  the  nephew  of  Rittenhouse,  and  the  son  of  the  Rev. 
Thomas  Barton,  a  learned  Episcopal  Clergyman  of  Lancaster, 
who  was  one  of  the  earliest  members  of  the  Philosophical  Society, 
and  a  man  accomplished  in  science. 

He  studied  at  Edinburgh  and  Gottingen,  and  at  the  age  of  19, 
in  1785,  he  was  the  assistant  of  Rittenhouse  and  Ellicott,  in 
the  work  of  establishing  the  western  boundary  of  Pennsylvania, 
and  soon  after  was  sent  to  Europe,  whence,  having  pursued  an 
extended  course  of  scientific  and  medical  study,  he  returned  in 
1789,  and  was  elected  professor  of  natural  history  and  botany  in 
the  University  of  Pennsylvania.  He  was  a  leader  in  the  Philo- 
sophical Society,  and  the  founder  of  the  Linna?an  Society  of 
Philadelphia,  before  which,  in  1807,  he  delivered  his  famous 
u  Discourse  on  some  of  the  Principal  Desiderata  in  Natural  His- 
torv,  "  which  did  much  to  excite  an  intelligent  popular  interest 
in  the  subject.  His  essays  upon  natural  history  topics  were  the 
first  of  the  kind  to  appear  in  this  country.  He  belonged  to  the 
school  of  Gilbert  White  and  Benjamin  Stillingfleet,  and  was 
the  first  in  America  of  a  most  useful  and  interesting  group  of 
writers,  among  whom  may  be  mentioned  John  D.  Godman, 
Samuel  Lockwood,  C.  C.  Abbott,  Nicholas  Pike,  John  Bur- 
roughs, Wilson  Flagg,  Ernest  Ingersoll,  the  Rev.  Dr.  McCook, 
Hamilton  Gibson,  Maurice  Thompson,  and  W.  T.  Hornaday,  as 
well  as  Matthew  Jones,  Campbell  Hardy,  Charles  Waterton, 
P.  H.  Gosse,  and  Grant  Allen,  to  whom  America  and  England 
both  have  claims. 

Barton  published  certain  descriptive  papers,  as  well  as  manuals 
of  botany  and  materia  medica,  but  in  latter  life  had  become  so 
absorbed  in  medical  affairs  that  he  appears  to  have  taken  no 
interest  in  the  struggles  of  the  infant  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences, 
which  was  founded  three  years  before  his  death,  but  of  which  he 
never  became  a  member, 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  25 

His  nephew  and  successor  in  the  Presidency  r/  the  Linnaean 
Society  and  the  University  Professorship,  William  P.  C.  Barton 
[b.  1786,  d.  1856],  was  a  man  of  similar  tendencies,  who  in 
early  life  published  papers  on  the  flora  of  Philadelphia  [Florae 
Philadelphia?  Prodromus,  1815],  but  later  devoted  himself  chiefly 
to  professional  affairs,  writing  copiously  upon  materia  medica  and 
medical  botany. 

The  admirers  of  Benjamin  Smith  Barton  have  called  him  "the 
father  of  American  Natural  History,"  but  I  cannot  see  the  pro- 
priety of  this  designation,  which  is  equally  applicable  to  Mitchill 
or  Jefferson,  and  perhaps  still  more  so  to  Peter  Collinson,  of 
London.  The  praises  of  Barton  have  been  so  well  and  so  often 
sung  that  I  do  not  feel  guilty  of  injustice  in  passing  him  briefly  by.* 

The  most  remarkable  naturalist  of  those  days  was  Rafinesque, 
[b.  1784,  d.  1872],  a  Sicilian  by  birth,  who  came  to  Philadel- 
phia in  1802. 

Nearly  fifty  years  ago  this  man  died,  friendless  and  impover- 
ished, in  Philadelphia.  His  last  words  were  these:  ''Time  ren- 
ders justice  to  all  at  last."  Perhaps  the  day  has  not  yet  come 
when  full  justice  can  be  done  to  the  memory  of  Constantine 
Rafinesque,  but  his  name  seems  yearly  to  grow  more  prominent 
in  the  history  of  American  zoology.  He  was  in  many  respects 
the  most  gifted  man  who  ever  stood  in  our  ranks.  When  in  his 
prime  he  far  surpassed  his  American  contemporaries  in  versa- 
tility and  comprehensiveness  of  grasp.  He  lived  a  century  too 
soon.  His  spirit  was  that  of  the  present  period.  In  the  latter 
years  of  his  life,  soured  by  disappointments,  he  seemed  to  become 
unsettled  in  mind,  but  as  I  read  the  story  of  his  life  his  eccen- 
tricities seem  to  me  the  outcome  of  a  boundless  enthusiasm  for 
the  study  of  nature.  The  picturesque  events  of  his  life  have 

*  W.  P.  C.  BARTON:  Biography  of  Benjamin  S.  Barton,  Philadelphia, 
1815 


26  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

boon  so  well  described  by  Jordan,*  Chase,f  and  Audubonj  that 
they  need  not  be  referred  to  here.  The  most  satisfactory  gauge 
of  his  abilities  is  perhaps  his  masterly  "  Survey  of  the  Progress 
and  Actual  State  of  Natural  Sciences  in  the  United  States  of 
America,'"  printed  in  i8i7.§  His  own  sorrowful  estimate  of 
the  outcome  of  his  mournful  career  is  very  touching : 

"I  have  often  been  discouraged,  but  have  never  despaired 
long.  I  have  lived  to  serve  mankind,  but  have  often  met  with 
ungrateful  returns.  I  have  tried  to  enlarge  the  limits  of  knowl- 
edge, but  have  often  met  with  jealous  rivals  instead  of  friends. 
With  a  greater  fortune  I  might  have  imitated  Humboldt  or 
Linnaeus." 

Dr.  Robert  Hare  [b.  1781 ,  d.  1858]  began  his  long  career  of  use- 
fulness in  1801,  at  the  age  of  twenty,  by  the  invention  of  the  oxy- 
hydrogen  blow-pipe.  This  was  exhibited  at  a  meeting  of  the 
Chemical  Society  of  Philadelphia  in  i8oi.|| 

This  apparatus  was  perhaps  the  most  remarkable  of  his  orig- 
inal contributions  to  science,  which  he  continued  without  inter- 
ruption for  more  than  fifty  years.  It  belongs  to  the  end  of  the 
post-revolutionary  period,  and  is  therefore  noticed,  although  it  is 
not  the  purpose  of  this  essay  to  consider  in  detail  the  work  of 
the  specialists  of  the  present  century. 

Dr.  Hugh  Williamson  [b.  Dec.  5,  1735,  d.,  in  New  York,  May 
22,  1719]  was  a  prominent  but  not  particularly  useful  promoter 
of  science,  a  writer  rather  than  a  thinker.  His  work  has  already 
been  referred  to.  The  names  of  Maclure,  who  came  to  Phila- 
delphia about  1797,  the  Rev.  John  Heckewelder,  and  Albert 
Gallatin  [b.  1761,  d.  in  1849],  a  native  of  Switzerland,  a  states- 
man and  financier,  subsequently  identified  with  the  scientific  cir- 


*  JORDAN  :  Bulletin  xv,  U.  S.  National  Museum  :  Science  Sketches,  p.  143. 
t  CHASE  :  Potter's  American  Monthly,  vi,  pp.  97-101. 
I  AUDUBON  :   The  Eccentric  Naturalist    <C  Ornithological   Biography, 
P-  455- 

§  Amer.  Monthly  Magazine,  ii,  81. 
||  Amer.  Month.  Mag.,  i,  80. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  27 

cles  of  New  York,  complete  the  list  of  the  Philadelphia  savans 
of  the  last  century. 

There  is  not  in  all  American  literature  a  passage  which  illus- 
trates the  peculiar  tendencies  in  the  thought  of  this  period  so 
thoroughly  as  Jefferson's  defense  of  the  country  against  the 
charges  of  Buffon  and  Raynal,  which  he  published  in  1783, 
which  is  particularly  entertaining  because  of  its  almost  pettish 
depreciation  of  our  motherland. 

"  On  doit  etre  etonne  "  (says  Raynal)  "  que  1'Amerique  n'ait 
pas  encore  produit  un  bon  poete,  un  habile  mathematicien,  un 
nomine  de  genie  dans  un  seul  art  on  un  seule  science." 

"  When  we  shall  have  existed  a  people  as  long  as  the  Greeks  did 
before  they  produced  a  Homer,  the  Romans  a  Virgil,  the  French 
a  Racine  and  Voltaire,  the  English  a  Shakespeare  and  Milton, 
should  this  reproach  still  be  true,  we  will  inquire  from  what 
unfriendly  causes  it  has  proceeded  that  the  other  countries  of 
Europe  and  quarters  of  the  earth  shall  not  have  inscribed  any 
name  on  the  role  of  poets. 

"  In  war  we  have  produced  a  Washington  whose  name  will  in 
future  ages  assume  its  just  station  among  the  celebrated  worthies 
of  the  world,  when  that  wretched  philosophy  shall.be  forgotten 
which  would  have  arranged  him  among  the  degeneracies  of  na- 
ture. 

*4  In  physics  we  have  produced  a  Franklin,  than  whom  no  one 
of  the  present  age  has  made  more  important  discoveries,  nor  has 
enriched  philosophy  with  more,  or  more  ingenious,  solutions  of 
the  phaenomena  of  nature. 

"  We  have  supposed  Mr.  Rittenhouse  second  to  no  astronomer 
living;  that  in  genius  he  must  be  the  first  because  he  is  self- 
taught.  He  has  not  indeed  made  a  world  ;  but  he  has  by  imita- 
tion approached  nearer  its  Maker  than  any  man  who  has  lived 
from  the  creation  to  this  day.  There  are  various  ways  of  keeping 
the  truth  out  of  sight.  Mr.  Rittenhouse's  model  of  the  planetary 
system  has  the  plagiary  appellation  of  an  orrery  ;  and  the  quadrant 
invented  by  Godfrey,  an  American  also,  and  with  the  aid  of  which 
the  European  nations  traverse  the  globe,  is  called  Hadley's  quad- 
rant. 

"  We  calculate  thus  :  The  United  States  contain  three  millions 
of  inhabitants  ;  France  twenty  millions ;  and  the  British  Islands 
ten.  We  produce  a  Washington,  a  Franklin,  a  Rittenhouse. 
France  then  should  have  half  a  dozen  in  each  of  these  lines,  and 
Great  Britain  half  that  number,  equally  eminent.  It  may  be  true 


28  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

that  France  has  ;  we  are  but  just  becoming  acquainted  with  her, 
and  our  acquaintance  so  far  gives  us  high  ideas  of  the  genius 
of  her  inhabitants. 

"  The  present  war  having  so  long  cut  off  all  communications 
with  Great  Britain,  we  are  not  able  to  make  a  fair  estimate 
of  the  state  of  science  in  that  country.  The  spirit  in  which  she 
wages  war  is  the  only  sample  before  our  eyes,  and  that  does  not 
seem  the  legitimate  offspring  either  of  science  or  civilization. 
The  sun  of  her  glory  is  fast  descending  to  the  horizon.  Her  phi- 
losophy has  crossed  the  channel,  her  freedom  the  Atlantic,  and 
herself  seems  bearing  to  that  awful  dissolution  whose  issue  is  not 
given  human  forethought  to  scan."* 

This  was  one  phase  of  public  sentiment.  Another,  no  less 
instructive,  is  that  shown  forth  in  the  publications  of  Jefferson's 
fierce  political  opponents  in  1790,  paraphrased,  as  follows,  by 
McMaster  in  his  "  History  of  the  People  of  the  United  States  :" 

"  Why,  it  was  asked,  should  a  philosopher  be  made  President? 
Is  not  the  active,  anxious,  and  responsible  station  of  Executive  illy 
suited  to  the  calm,  retired,  and  exploring  tastes  of  a  natural  phi- 
losopher? Ability  to  impale  butterflies  and  contrive  turn-about 
chairs  may  entitle  one  to  a  college  professorship,  but  it  no  more 
constitutes  a  claim  to  the  Presidency  than  the  genius  of  Cox,  the 
great  bridge-builder,  or  the  feats  of  Ricketts,  the  equestrian.  Do 
not  the  pages  of  history  teem  with  evidence  of  the  ignorance  and 
mismanagement  of  philosophical  politicians?  John  Locke  was  a 
philosopher,  and  framed  a  constitution  for  the  colony  of  Georgia, 
but  so  full  was  it  of  whimsies  that  it  had  to  be  thrown  aside. 
Condorcet,  in  1793,  made  a  constitution  for  France,  but  it  con- 
tained more  absurdities  than  were  ever  before  piled  up  in  a  system 
of  government,  and  was  not  even  tried.  Rittenhouse  was  another 
philosopher;  but  the  only  proof  he  gave  of  political  talents  was 
suffering  himself  to  be  wheedled  into  the  presidency  of  the  Demo- 
cratic Society  of  Philadelphia.  But  suppose  that  the  title  of  phi- 
losopher is  a  good  claim  to  the  Presidency,  what  claim  has  Thomas 
Jefferson  to  the  title  of  philosopher?  Why,  forsooth  ! 

"  He  has  refuted  Moses,  dishonored  the  story  of  the  Deluge, 
made  a  penal  code,  drawn  up  a  report  in  weights  and  measures, 
and  speculated  profoundly  on  the  primary  causes  of  the  difference 
between  the  whites  and  blacks.  Think  of  such  a  man  as  Presi- 
dent!  Think  of  a  foreign  minister  surprising  him  in  the  act  of 
anatomizing  the  kidneys  and  glands  of  an  African  to  find  out  why 
the  negro  is  black  and  odoriferous  ! 


*  Notes  on  Virginia,  1788,  pp.  69-71. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  29 

u  He  has  denied  that  shells  found  on  the  mountain  tops  are  parts 
of  the  great  flood.  He  has  declared  that  if  the  contents  of  the 
whole  atmosphere  were  water,  the  land  would  only  be  overflowed 
to  the  depth  of  fifty-two  and  a  half  feet.  He  does  not  believe 
the  Indians  emigrated  from  Asia. 

•;  Every  mail  from  the  South  brought  accounts  of  rumblings  and 
quakes  in  the  Alleghanies,  and  strange  lights  and  blazing  meteors 
in  the  sky.  These  disturbances  in  the  natural  world  might  have 
no  connection  with  the  troubles  in  the  political  world ;  neverthe- 
less it  was  impossible  not  to  compare  them  with  the  prodigies  all 
writers  of  the  day  declare  preceded  the  fatal  Ides  of  March." 

X. 

In  New  York,  although  a  flourishing  medical  school  had  been 
in  existence  from  1769,  there  was  an  astonishing  dearth  of  natu- 
ralists until  about  1790.  Governor  Golden,  the  botanist  and 
ethnologist,  had  died  in  1776,  and  the  principal  medical  men 
of  the  city,  the  Bards,  Glossy,  Jones,  Middleton.  Dyckman, 
and  others,  confined  their  attention  entirely  to  professional 
studies.  A  Philosophical  Society  was  born  in  1787,  but  died 
before  it  could  speak.  A  Society  for  the  Promotion  of  Agri- 
culture, Arts,  and  Manufactures,  organized  in  1791,  was  more 
successful,  but  not  in  the  least  scientific.  Up  to  the  end  of 
the  century  New  York  State  had  but  six  men  chosen  to  mem- 
bership in  the  American  Philosophical  Society,  and,  up  to  1809, 
but  five  in  the  American  Academy.  Leaders,  however,  soon 
arose  in  Mitchill,  Clinton,  and  Hosack. 

Samuel  Latham  Mitchill,  the  son  of  a  Quaker  farmer  [b.  1764. 
d.  1831],  was  educated  in  the  medical  schools  of  New  York 
and  Edinburgh,  and  in  1792  was  appointed  Professor  of  Chem- 
istry, Natural  History,  and  Philosophy  in  Columbia  College. 
Although  during  most  of  his  long  life  a  medical  professor  and 
editor,  and  for  many  years  representative  and  senator  in  Congress, 
he  continued  active  in  the  interests  of  general  science.  He  made 
many  contributions  to  systematic  natural  history,  notably  a  His- 
tory of  the  Fishes  of  New  York,  and  his  edition  of  Bewick's 


30  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

"  General  History  of  Quadrupeds,"  published  in  New  York  in 
1804,  with  notes  and  additions,  and  some  figures  of  American 
animals,  was  the  earliest  American  work  of  the  kind.  He  was  the 
first  in  America  to  lecture  upon  geology,  and  published  several 
papers  upon  this  science.  His  "  Mineralogical  Exploration  of 
the  banks  of  the  Hudson  River"  in  1796,  under  the  "  Society 
for  the  Promotion  of  Agriculture,  Manufactures,  and  Useful 
Arts,"  founded  by  himself,  was  our  earliest  attempt  at  this 
kind  of  research,  and  in  1794  he  published  an  essay  on  the 
"Nomenclature  of  the  New  Chemistry,"  the  first  American 
paper  on  chemical  philosophy,  and  engaged  in  a  controversy 
with  Priestley,  in  defence  of  the  nomenclature  of  Lavoisier, 
which  he  was  the  first  American  to  adopt. 

His  discourse  on  "  The  Botanical  History  of  North  and  South 
America"  was  also  a  pioneer  effort.  He  was  an  early  leader 
in  ethnological  inquiries  and  a  vigorous  writer  on  political  topics. 
His  "  Life  of  Tammany,  the  Indian  Chief"  (New  York,  1795), 
is  a  classic,  and  he  was  well  known  to  our  grandfathers  as  the 
author  of  "  An  Address  to  the  Fredes  or  People  of  the  United 
States,"  in  which  he  proposed  that  "  Fredonia"  should  be  adopted 
as  the  name  of  the  nation. 

Dr.  Mitchill  was  a  poet,*  and  a  humorist,  and  a  member  of  the 
literary  circles  of  his  day.  In  "The  Croakers"  Rodman  Drake 
thus  addressed  him  as  "  The  Surgeon  General  of  New  York  :" 

"  It  matters  not  how  high  or  low  it  is 
Thou  knowest  each  hill  and  vale  of  knowledge, 
Fellow  of  forty-nine  societies 
And  lecturer  in  Hosack's  College." 

Fitz-Greene  Halleck  also  paid  his  compliments  in  the  following 
terms : 

"Time  was  when  Dr.  Mitchill's  word  was  law, 
When  Monkeys,  Monsters,  Whales  and  Esquimaux, 
Asked  but  a  letter  from  his  ready  hand, 
To  be  the  theme  and  wonder  of  the  land." 

*  Examples  of  his  verses  may  be  found  in  Duyckinck's  Cyclopedia  of 
American  Literature. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  31 

These  and  other  pleasantries,  of  which  many  are  quoted  in 
Fairchild's  admirable  u  History  of  the  New  York  Academy  of 
Sciences,"  gives  us  an  idea  of  the  provinciality  of  New  York 
sixty  years  ago,  when  every  citizen  would  seem  to  have  known 
the  principal  local  representatives  of  science,  and  to  have  felt  a 
sense  of  personal  proprietorship  in  him  and  in  his  projects. 

Mitchill  was  a  leader  in  the  New  York  Historical  Society  ; 
founder  of  the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society,  and  of  its 
successor,  the  Lyceum  of  Natural  History,  of  which  he  was  long 
president.  He  was  also  President  of  the  New  York  Branch  of 
the  Linnaean  Society  of  Paris,  and  of  the  N.  Y.  State  Medical 
Society,  and  Surgeon-General  of  the  State  Militia;  a  man  of  the 
widest  influence  and  universally  beloved.  He  served  four  terms 
in  the  House  of  Representatives,  and  was  five  years  a  member 
of  the  U.  S.  Senate.* 

DeWitt  Clinton  [b.  1769,  d.  1828],  statesman  and  philan- 
thropist, U.  S.  Senator,  and  Governor  of  New  York,  was  a 
man  of  similar  tastes  and  capacities.  What  Benjamin  Frank- 
lin was  to  Philadelphia  in  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century 
DeWitt  Clinton  was  to  New  York  in  the  beginning  of  the  nine- 
teenth. He  was  the  author  of  the  Hibernicus  "  Letters  on 
the  Natural  History  and  Internal  Resources  of  the  State  of  New 
York"  (New  York,  1822),  a  work  of  originality  and  merit.  As 
President  of  the  Literary  and  Philosophical  Society  he  delivered 
in  1814  an  u  Introductory  Discourse,"  which,  like  Barton's  in 

*  See  FRANCIS,  JOHN  W.  Life  of  Dr.  Mitchill,  in  Williams's  American 
Medical  Biography,  pp.  401-411,  and  eulogy  in  Discourse  in  Commemora- 
tion of  53d  Anniversary  of  N.  Y.  Hist.  Soc.,  1857,  56-60;  and  in  his  Old 
New  York;  also — 

Sketch  by  H.  L.  Fairchild  in  History  of  the  New  York  Academy  of  Sci- 
ences, 1887,  pp.  57-67;  also  Dr.  Mitchill's  own  pamphlet:  Some  of  the 
Memorable  Events  and  Occurrences  in  the  Life  of  Samuel  S.  Mitchill,  of 
New  York,  from  the  year  1786  to  1827. 

A  biography  by  Akerly  was  in  existence,  but  has  never  been  printed. 

Numerous  portraits  are  in  existence,  which  are  described  by  Fairchild. 


32  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

Philadelphia,  ten  years  before,  was  productive  of  great  good.  It 
was,  moreover,  laden  with  the  results  of  original  and  important 
observations  in  all  departments  of  natural  history.  Another  im- 
portant paper  was  his  „"  Memoirs  on  the  Antiquities  of  Western 
New  York  "  printed  in  1818. 

Clinton's  attention  was  devoted  chiefly  to  public  affairs,  and 
especially  to  the  organization  of  the  admirable  school  system  of 
New  York  and  other  internal  improvements.  He  did  enough  in 
science,  however,  to  place  him  in  the  highest  ranks  of  our  early 
naturalists.* 

Hosack  has  been  referred  to  elsewhere  as  a  pioneer  in  miner- 
alogy and  the  founder  of  the  first  botanic  garden.  He  was  long 
president  of  the  Historical  Society,  and  exercised  a  commanding 
influence  in  every  direction.  His  researches  were,  however, 
chiefly  medical. 

Samuel  Akerly  [b.  1785,  d.  1845],  the  brother-in-law  of 
Mitchill,  a  graduate  of  Columbia  College,  1807,  was  an  in- 
dustrious worker  in  zoology  and  botany  and  the  author  of  the 
"  Geology  of  the  Hudson  River."  John  Griscom  [b.  1774,  d. 
1852],  one  of  the  earliest  teachers  of  chemistry,  began  in  1806  a 
career  of  great  usefulness.  "  For  thirty  years,"  wrote  Francis, 
44  he  was  the  acknowledged  head  of  all  other  teachers  of  chem- 
istry among  us  (in  New  York),  and  he  kept  pace  with  the  flood 
of  light  which  Davy,  Murray,  Gaylussac,  and  Thenard,  and 
others  shed  on  the  progress  of  chemical  philosophy  at  that  day." 
About  1820  he  went  abroad  to  study  scientific  institutions,  and  his 
charming  book,  'A  Year  in  Europe,'  supplemented  by  his  regu- 
lar contributions  to  Sillimart's  Journal,  commenting  on  scientific 
affairs  in  other  countries,  did  much  to  stimulate  the  growth  of 
scientific  and  educational  institutions  in  America. 

*  HOSACK  :  Memoirs  of  DeWitt  Clinton.  New  York,  1829.  RENWICK  : 
Life  of  DeWitt  Clinton.  New  York,  1840.  CAMPBELL  :  Life  and  Writings 
of  DeWitt  Clinton.  New  York,  1849. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  33 

Francis  tells  us  that  he  was  for  thirty  years  the  acknowledged 
head  of  the  teachers  of  chemistry  in  New  York.* 

A  zealous  promoter  of  zoology  in  those  days  was  F.  Adrian 
Vanderkemp,  of  Oldenbarnavelt,  New  York,  who  in  1795,  we 
are  told,  delivered  an  address  before  an  Agricultural  Society  in 
Whitesburg,  N.  Y.,  in  which  he  offered  premiums  for  essays 
upon  certain  subjects,  among  which  was  one  "  for  the  best  ana- 
tomical and  historical  account  of  the  moose,  fifty  dollars,  or  for 
bringing  one  in  alive,  sixty  dollars."! 

Having  mentioned  several  American  naturalists  of  foreign 
birth,  it  may  not  be  out  of  place  to  refer  to  the  American  origin 
of  an  English  zoologist  of  high  repute,  Dr.  Thomas  Horsfield, 
born  in  Philadelphia  in  1773,  and  after  many  years  in  the  East 
became,  in  1820,  a  resident  of  London,  where  he  died  in  1859. 
His  name  is  prominent  among  those  of  the  entomologists,  bota- 
nists, and  ornithologists  of  this  century,  especially  in  connection 
with  Java. 

XI. 

In  New  England,  science  was  more  highly  appreciated  than  in 
New  York.  Massachusetts  had  in  John  Adams  a  man  who,  like 
Franklin  and  Jefferson,  realized  that  scientific  institutions  were 
the  best  protection  for  a  democratic  government,  and  to  his  efforts 
America  owes  its  second  scientific  society — the  American  Acad- 
emy of  Arts  and  Sciences,  founded  in  1780.  When  Mr.  Adams 
travelled  from  Boston  to  Philadelphia,  in  the  days  just  before 
the  Revolution,  he  several  times  visited  at  Norwalk,  we  are  told, 
a  curious  collection  of  American  birds  and  insects  made  by  Mr. 
Arnold.  "This  was  afterwards  sold  to  Sir  Ashton  Lever,  in 
whose  apartments  in  London  Mr.  Adams  saw  it  again,  and  felt 
i  new  regret  at  our  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  productions  of 

*  GRISCOM,  JOHN  H.:  Memoir  of  John  Griscom.    New  York,  1859. 
t  DeWitt  Clinton,  in  Trans.  Lt.  Phil.  Soc.  N.  Y.,  p.  59. 


34  BIOLOGICAL   SOCIETY    OF    WASHItfGTOK 

the  three  kingdoms  of  nature  in  our  land.  In  France  his  visits 
to  the  museums  and  other  establishments,  with  the  inquiries  of 
Academicians  and  other  men  of  science  and  letters  respecting 
this  country,  and  their  encomiums  on  the  Philosophical  Society 
of  Philadelphia,  suggested  to  him  the  idea  of  engaging  his  native 
State  to  do  something  in  the  same  good  but  neglected  cause."* 

The  Academy,  from  the  first,  was  devoted  chiefly  to  the  physi- 
cal sciences,  and  the  papers  in  its  memoirs  for  the  most  part 
relate  to  astronomy  and  meteorology. 

Among  its  early  members  I  find  the  names  of  but  two  natural- 
ists :  The  Rev.  Manasseh  Cutler,  pastor  of  Ipswich  Hamlet,  one 
of  the  earliest  botanists  of  New  England,!  and  William  Dan- 
dridge  Peck  [b.  1763,  d.  1882],  the  author  of  the  first  paper  on 
systematic  zoology  ever  published  in  America,  a  "  Description 
of  four  remarkable  fishes,  taken  near  the  Piscataqua  in  New 
Hampshire,"  published  in  1794^  Peck,  after  graduating  at 
Harvard,  lived  at  Kittery,  N.  H.,  and  first  became  interested  in 
natural  history  by  reading  a  wave-worn  copy  of  Linnets  "  Sys- 
tem of  Nature,"  which  he  obtained  from  the  ship  which  was 
wrecked  near  his  house.  He  became  a  good  entomologist,  and 
communicated  much  valuable  material  to  Kirby  in  England,  and 
was  also  one  of  our  first  writers  on  the  fungi.  He  was  the  first 
to  occupy  the  chair  of  natural  history  in  Harvard  University,  to 
which  he  was  appointed  in  1800. 

The  Rev.  Dr.  Jedediah  Morse  [b.  1761,  grad.  Yale,  1783, 
d.  1826]  was  the  earliest  of  American  geographers,  and  appears, 
especially  in  the  later  gazetteers  published  by  him,  to  have  printed 
important  facts  concerning  the  number  and  geographical  distribu- 
tion of  the  various  Indian  tribes. 

The  Connecticut  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences  was  founded 

*KIRTLAND:  Mem.  Amer.  Acad.     New  Series,  vol.  i,  p.  xxii. 

t  See  previous  address,  p.  95. 

J  Mem.  Amer.  Acad.  Sci.,  ii,  Part  ii,  p.  46.     1797. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  35 

in  1799,  one  of  the  chief  promoters  being  President  Dwight 
[b.  1752,  d.  1817],  whose  "Travels  in  New  England  and 
New  York,"  printed  in  1821,  abounds  with  scientific  observations. 

Another  was  E.  C.  Herrick  [b.  1811,  d.  1862],  for  many 
years  librarian  and  subsequently  treasurer  of  Yale  College, 
whose  observations  upon  the  aurora,  made  in  the  latter  years  of 
the  last  century,  are  still  frequently  quoted  ;  and  later  an  active 
investigator  of  volcanic  phenomena,  and  the  author  of  a  treatise 
on  the  Hessian  fly  and  its  parasites,  the  results  of  nine  years' 
study ;  and  of  another  on  the  existence  of  a  planet  between 
Mercury  and  the  sun. 

Benjamin  Silliman  [b.  in  Trumbull,  Conn.,  Aug.  8,  1779,  d. 
in  New  Haven,  Nov.  27,  1869],  who,  in  1802,  became  Professor 
of  Chemistry  at  Yale,  began  there  his  career  of  usefulness  as 
an  organizer,  teacher,  and  critic.  One  of  his  introductions  to 
popular  favor  was  the  paper  which  he,  in  conjunction  with 
Prof.  Kingsley,  published,  "An  account  of  the  meteor  which 
burst  over  Weston,  in  Connecticut,  in  December,  1807."  This 
paper  attracted  attention  everywhere,  for  the  nature  of  meteors 
was  not  well  understood  in  those  days.  Jefferson  was  reputed  to 
have  said  in  reference  to  it,  "  that  it  was  easier  to  believe  that 
two  Yankee  professors  could  lie  than  to  admit  that  stones  could 
fall  from  heaven  ;"  but  I  think  this  must  be  pigeon-holed  with 
the  millions  of  other  slanders  to  which  Jefferson  was  subjected 
in  those  days.  I  find  in  the  papers  by  Rittenhouse  and  Madison, 
published  twenty  years  before,  by  the  Philosophical  Society, 
matter-of-fact  allusions  to  the  falling  of  meteors  to  the  earth. 

Silliman  was  the  earliest  of  American  scientific  lecturers  who 
appeared  before  popular  audiences,  and,  as  founder  and  editor  of 
the  Journal  of  Science,  did  a  service  to  science,  the  value  of 
which  is  beyond  estimate  or  computation. 

Benjamin  Waterhouse,  Professor  of  the  Theory  and  Practice 
of  Medicine  in  Harvard,  1783-1812,  was  one  of  the  earliest 


36  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

teachers  of  natural  botany  in  America,  and  the  author  of  a  poem 
entitled  "  The  Botanist."  *  The  Rev.  Jeremy  Belknap  [b.  1744, 
d.  1798],  in  his  "  History  of  New  Hampshire,"  and  the  Rev. 
Samuel  Williams  [b.  1743,  d.  1817],  in  his  ''Natural  and  Civil 
History  of  Vermont,  "f  made  contributions  to  local  natural  his- 
tory, and  Capt.  Jonathan  Carver  [b.  1732,  d.  1780],  in  his 
"  Travels  through  the  Interior  Parts  of  America,'"'  {  gave  some 
meagre  information  as  to  the  zoology  and  botany  of  regions 
previously  unknown.  v 

In  the  South  the  prestige  of  colonial  days  seemed  to  have  de- 
parted. Except  Jefferson,  the  'only  naturalist  in  Virginia  was 
Dr.  James  Greenway,  of  Dinwiddie  Co.,  a,  botanist  of  some 
merit.  Mitchell  returned  to  England  before  the  Revolution,  and 
Garden  followed  in  1784.  H.  B.  Latrobe,  of  Baltimore,  was 
an  amateur  ichthyologist,  and  Dr.  James  MacBride,  of  Pine- 
ville,  S.  C.  [b.  1784,  d.  1817],  was  an  active  botanist.  Dr. 
Lionel  Chalmers  [b.  1715?  d.  Z777]>  wno  was  f°r  many  years 
the  leader  of  scientific  activity  in  South  Carolina,  was  omitted 
in  the  previous  address.  A  graduate  of  Edinburgh,  he  was  for 
forty  years  a  physician  in  Charleston.  He  recorded  observations 
on  meteorology  from  1750  to  1760,  the  foundation  of  his  "  Trea- 
tise on  the  Weather  and  Diseases  of  South  Carolina  "  [London, 
1776],  and  published  also  valuable  papers  on  pathology.  He 
was  the  host  and  patron  of  many  naturalists,  such  as  the  Bar- 
trams. 

There  was  no  lack  of  men  in  the  South  who  were  capable  of 
appreciating  scientific  work.  Virginia  had  fourteen  members 
in  the  American  Philosophical  Society  from  1780  to  1800,  while 
Massachusetts  and  New  York  had  only  six  each,  the  Carolinas 
had  eight,  and  Maryland  six.  The  population  of  the  South 
was,  however,  widely  dispersed  and  no  concentration  of  effort 


*  Biography  in  Polyanthus,  vol.  ii. 
f  Walpole,  N.  H.,  1794,  8vo,  p.  416. 
t  1778. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  37 

was  possible.  To  this  was  due,  no  doubt,  the  speedy  dissolu- 
tion of  the  Academy  of  Arts  and  Sciences  founded  in  Richmond 
in  1788.* 

A  name  which  should,  perhaps,  be  mentioned  in  connection 
with  this  is  that  of  Dr.  William  Charles  Wells,  whom  it  has 
been  the  fashion  of  late  to  claim  as  an  American.  It  would 
be  gratifying  to  be  able  to  vindicate  this  claim,  for  Wells  was 
a  man  of  whom  any  nation  might  be  proud.  He  was  the  orig- 
inator of  the  generally-accepted  theory  of  the  origin  of  dew,  and 
was  also,  as  Darwin  has  shown,  the  first  to  recognize  and  an- 
nounce the  theory  of  evolution  by  natural  selection. f  Unfor- 
tunately Wells's  science  was  not  American  science.  We  might 
with  equal  propriety  claim  as  American  the  art  of  James 
Whistler,  the  politics  of  Parnell,  the  fiction  of  Alexandre 
Dumas,  the  essays  of  Grant  Allen,  or  the  science  of  Rumford 
and  Le  Vaillant. 

Wells  was  the  son  of  an  English  painter,  who  emigrated,  in 
1753,  to  South  Carolina,  where  he  remained  until  the  time  of 
the  Revolution,  when,  with  other  loyalists,  he  returned  to 
England.  He  was  born  during  his  father's  residence  in  Charles- 
ton, but  left  the  country  in  his  minority ;  was  educated  at  Edin- 
burgh, and  though  he,  as  a  young  physician,  spent  four  years  in 
the  United  States,  he  was  permanently  established  in  London 
practice  fully  twenty-eight  years  before  he  read  his  famous  letter 
before  the  Royal  Society. 

The  first  American  naturalist  who  held  definite  views  as  to 
evolution  was,  undoubtedly,  Rafinesque.  In  a  letter  to  Dr. 
Torrey,  Dec.  i,  1832,  he  wrote: 

"  The  truth  is  that  species,  and  perhaps  genera  also,  are  form- 
ing in  organized  beings  by  gradual  deviations  of  shapes,  forms, 
and  organs  taking  place  in  the  lapse  of  time.  There  is  a  tendency 

*  See  previous  discourse,  p.  98. 

t DARWIN:  Origin  of  species,  6th  Amer.  Ed.,  p  xv.  MORSE:  Proc. 
Amer.  Assoc.  Adv.  Science,  xxv,  p.  141. 


38  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

to  deviation  and  mutation  in  plants  and  animals  by  gradual  steps, 
at  remote,  irregular  periods.  This  is  a  part  of  the  great  universal 
law  of  perpetual  mutability  in  everything." 

It  is  pleasant  to  remember  that  both  Darwin  and  Wallace 
owed  much  of  their  insight  into  the  processes  of  nature  to  their 
American  explorations.  It  is  also  interesting  to  recall  the  clos- 
ing lines,  almost  prophetic  as  they  seem  to-day,  of  the  "Epistle 
to  the  Author  of  the  Botanic  Garden,"*  written  in  1798  by 
Elihu  Hubbard  Smith,  of  New  York,  and  prefixed  to  the  Amer- 
ican editions  of  "  The  Botanic  Garden  :" 

"  Where  Mississippi's  turbid  waters  glide 
And  white  Missouri  pours  its  rapid  tide; 
Where  vast  Superior  spreads  its  inland  sea 
And  the  pale  tribes  near  icy  empires  sway; 
Where  now  Alaska  lifts  its  forests  rude 
And  Nootka  rolls  her  solitary  flood. 
Hence  keen  incitement  prompt  the  prying  mind 
By  treacherous  fears,  nor  palsied  nor  confined; 
Its  curious  search  embrace  the  sea  and  shore 
And  mine  and  ocean,  earth  and  air  explore. 

"  Thus  shall  the  years  proceed, — till  growing  time 
Unfold  the  treasures  of  each  different  clime; 
Till  one  vast  brotherhood  mankind  unite 
In  equal  bonds  of  knowledge  and  of  right; 
Thus  the  proud  column,  to  the  smiling  skies 
In  simple  majesty  sublime  shall  rise, 
O'er  ignorance  foiled,  their  triumph  loud  proclaim, 
And  bear  inscribed,  immortal,  DARWIN'S  name." 

XII. 

During  the  three  decades  which  made  up  the  post-revolution- 
ary period  there  were  several  "  beginnings  "  which  may  not 
well  be  referred  to  in  connection  with  individuals  or  localities. 

The  first  book  upon  American  insects  was  published  in  1797, 
a  sumptuously-illustrated  work,  in  two  volumes,  with  104  col- 
ored plates,  entitled  "  The  Natural  History  of  the  rarer  Lepi- 
dopterous  Insects  of  Georgia."  This  was  compiled  by  Sir 
James  E.  Smith  from  the  notes  and  drawings  of  John  Abbot 

*  Erasmus,  grandfather  of  Charles  Darwin. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  39 

[b.  about  1760],  living  in  England  in  1840,  an  accomplished 
collector  and  artist,  who  had  been  for  several  years  a  resident 
of  Georgia,  gathering  insects  for  sale  in  Europe.  Mr.  Scudder 
characterizes  him  as  "  the  most  prominent  student  of  the  life  his- 
tories of  insects  we  have  ever  had."* 

There  had,  however,  been  creditable  work  previously  done  in 
what  our  entomologists  are  pleased  to  call  the  biological  side  of 
the  science.  As  early  as  1768,  Col.  Landon  Carter,  of  "  Sabine 
Hall/'  Virginia,  prepared  an  elaborate  paper  u  On  the  Habits  of 
the  Fly-Weevil  that  destroys  the  Wheat/'  which  was  printed  by 
the  American  Philosophical  Society ,|  accompanied  by  an  ex- 
tended report  by  "  The  Committee  of  Husbandry."  In  the  same 
year  Moses  Bartram  presented  his  "  Observations  on  the  native 
Silk-Worms  of  North  America. "J 

Organized  effort  in  economic  entomology  appears  to  date  from 
the  year  1792,  when  the  American  Philosophical  Society  ap- 
pointed a  committee  to  collect  materials  for  a  natural  history  of 
the  Hessian  Fly,  at  that  time  making  frightful  ravages  in  the 
wheat-fields,  and  so  much  dreaded  in  Great  Britain  that  the 
import  of  wheat  from  the  United  States  was  forbidden  by  law. 
The  Philosophical  Society's  committee  was  composed  of  Thomas 
Jefferson,  at  that  time  Secretary  of  State  in  President  Washing- 
ton's cabinet,  Benjamin  Smith  Barton,  James  Hutchinson,  and 
Caspar  Wistar.  In  their  report,  which  was  accompanied  by 
large  drawings,  the  history  of  the  little  marauder  was  given  in 
considerable  detail. 

The  publication  of  Wilson's  American  Ornithology,  begin- 
ning in  1808,  was  an  event  of  great  importance.  It  was  in  1804 

*  There  is  a  whole  series  of  quarto  or  folio  volumes  in  the  British  Mu- 
seum done  by  him,  and  a  few  volumes  are  extant  in  this  country.  Be- 
sides, all  the  biological  material, in  Smith- Abbot's  Insects  of  Georgia  is 
his."— Letter  of  S.  H.  Scudder. 

t  Transactions  of  the  American  Philosophical  Soc.,  i,  274. 

I  Ibid.,  p.  294. 


40  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

that  the  author,  a  schoolmaster  near  Philadelphia,  decided  upon 
his  plan.     In  a  letter  to  Lawson  he  wrote : 

"  I  am  most  earnestly  bent  on  pursuing  my  plan  of  making  a 
Collection  of  all  the  Birds  of  North  America.  Now,  I  don't 
want  you  to  throw  cold  water  on  this  notice,  Quixotic  as  it  may 
appear.  I  have  been  so  long  accustomed  to  the  building  of  Airy 
Castles  and  brain  Windmills  that  it  has  become  one  of  my  com- 
forts of  life,  a  sort  of  rough  Bone,  that  amuses  me  when  sated 
with  the  dull  drudgery  of  Life." 

I  need  not  eulogize  Wilson.  Every  one  knows  how  well  he 
succeeded.  He  has  had  learned  commentators  and  elo- 
quent biographers.  Our  children  pore  over  the  narrative  of 
the  adventurous  life  of  the  weaver  naturalist,  and  we  all  are 
sensible  of  the  charms  which  his  graceful  pen  has  given  to  the 
life-histories  of  the  birds. 

His  poetical  productions  are  immortal,  and  his  lines  to  the 
Blue  Bird  and  the  Fisherman's  Hymn  are  worthy  to  stand  by 
the  side  of  Bryant's  Waterfowl,  Trowbridge's  Wood  Pevvee, 
Emerson's  Titmouse,  Thaxter's  Sandpiper,  and,  possibly  best 
of  all,  Walt.  Whitman's  Mocking-Bird  in  "  Out  of  the  Cradle 
endlessly  Rocking." 

Ichthyology  in  America  dates  also  from  these  last  years  of 
the  century.  Garden  was  our  only  resident  ichthyologist  until 
Peck  and  Mitchill  began  their  work,  but  Schoepf,  the  Hessian 
military  surgeon,  printed  a  paper  on  the  Fishes  of  New  York 
in  1 787 ,  and  William  Bryant,  of  New  Jersey,  and  Henry  Col- 
lins Flagg,  of  South  Carolina,  made  observations  upon  the  elec- 
tric eel,  in  addition  to  those  which  Williamson,  of  North  Car- 
olina, laid  before  the  Royal  Society  in  1775. 

Paleontology  had  its  beginning  at  about  the  same  time  in  the 
publication  of  Jefferson's  paper  on  the  Megalonyx  or  "Great 
Claw"  in  1797.* 

*  The  first  vertebrate  fossils  were  found  in  Virginia.  Samuel  Maverick, 
of  Massachusetts,  reported  to  the  colony  at  Boston  in  1836  that,  at  a  place 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  41 

This  early  study  of  a  fossil  vertebrate  was  followed  2O  years 
later  by  the  first  paper  which  touched  upon  invertebrates — that 
by  Say  on  "-Fossil  Zoology,"  in  the  first  volume  of  Silliman's 
Journal.  Lesueur  seems  to  have  brought  from  France  some 
knowledge  of  the  names  of  fossils,  and  identified  many  species 
for  the  early  American  geologists. 

Stratigraphical  and  physical  geology  also  came  in  at  this  time, 
and  will  be  referred  to  later. 

The  science  of  mineralogy  was  brought  to  America  in  its 
infancy.  The  first  course  of  lectures  upon  this  subject  ever 
given  in  London  was  in  the  winter  of  1793-4,  by  Schmeisser, 
u  pupil  of  Werner.  Dr.  David  Hosack,  then  a  student  of 
medicine  at  Edinburgh,  was  one  of  his  hearers,  and  inspired  by 
his  enthusiasm  began  at  once  to  form  the  collection  of  minerals 
which  he  brought  to  America  on  his  return  in  1794,  which  was 
the  first  mineralogical  cabinet  ever  seen  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic.  This  collection  was  exhibited  for  many  years  in  New 
York  (and  in  1821  was  given  to  Princeton  College).  Howard 
soon  after  obtained  a  select  cabinet  from  Europe,  and  the 
museum  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society  acquired  the 
Smith  collection.  In  1802,  Mr.  B.  D.  Perkins,  a  New  York 
bookseller,  brought  from  London  a  fine  collection,  which  soon 
passed  into  the  possession  of  Yale  College,  and  in  1803  Dr.  Arch- 
ibald Bruce  brought  over  one  equally  fine,  \\hich  was  made  the 
basis  of  lectures  when  in  1806  he  became  -professor  of  miner- 
alogy in  Columbia  College.  George  Gibbs,  in  1805,  imported 
the  magnificent  collection  which  was  long  in  the  custody  of  the 
American  Geological  Society.  Seybert,  about  the  same  time, 
brought  to  Philadelphia  the  cabinet  which  in  1813  was  bought 
by  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  and  was  lectured  upon  by 
Troost  in  1814. 

on  the  James  River,  about  sixty  miles  above  its  mouth,  the  colonists  had 
found  shells  and  bones,  among  these  bones  that  of  a  whale,  eighteen  feet 
below  the  surface. — Neill's  Virginia  Carolorum,  p.  131. 


42  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY   OF    WASHINGTON. 

Much  of  the  early  botanical  exploration  was,  however,  carried 
out  by  European  botanists  :  Andre  Michaux  [b.  near  Versailles, 
1746,  d.  Madagascar,  1802],  a  pupil  of  the  Jussiens  and  an  ex- 
perienced explorer,  was  sent  by  this  government,  in  1785,  to 
collect  useful  trees  and  shrubs  for  naturalization  in  France.  He 
remained  eleven  years ;  made  extensive  explorations  in  the 
regions  then  accessible,  and  as  far  west  as  the  Mississippi ;  sent 
home  immense  numbers  of  living  plants  ;  and,  after  his  return, 
in  1796,  published  his  treatise  on  the  American  Oaks,*  and  pre- 
pared the  materials  for  his  posthumous  u  Flora  Boreali-Ameri- 
canas." 

Fran9ois  Andre  Michaux  [b.  near  Versailles,  1770,  d.  at 
Vaureal,  1855]  was  his  father's  assistant  in  these  early  travels, 
and  in  1802  and  1806  himself  made  botanical  explorations  in  the 
Mississippi  Valley.  His  botanical  works  were  of  great  impor- 
tance, t  especially  that  known  in  its  English  translation  as  the 
"  North  American  Sylva,"  afterward  completed  by  Nuttall,  and 
still  the  only  work  of  the  kind,  though  soon  to  be  supplemented, 
we  hope,  by  Professor  Sargent's  projected  monographs. 

Frederick  Pursh  [b.  1774,  in  Tobolsk,  Siberia,  d.  June  n, 
1820,  in  Montreal,  Canada]  carried  on  botanical  explorations 
between  1799  and  1819;  living,  from  1802  to  1805,  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  from  1807  to  1810  in  New  York.  In  1814  he  pub- 
lished in  London  his  "  Flora  Americae  Septemtrionalis."  Pursh' s 
Flora  was  largely  based  upon  the  labors  of  the  American  bot- 
anists Barton,  Hosack,  LeConte,  Peck,  Clayton,  Walter,  and 
Lyon,  and  the  botanical  collection  of  Lewis  and  Clarke,  and 
enumerated  about  3,000  species  of  plants,  while  Michaux's, 
printed  eleven  years  before,  had  only  about  half  that  number. 

A.  von  Enslen  collected  plants  at  this  time,  in  the  South  and 
West,  for  the  Imperial  Cabinet  in  Vienna.  C.  C.  Robin,  who 


*  Histoire  des  che'nes  de  PAmerique  Septentrionale,  1801 ;  36  plates, 
f  Voyage  a  Pouest  des  monte  Alleghany,  &c.  8vo,  pp.  684.     Paris,  1808, 
Jlistoire  des  arbres  fbre*stieres  de  PAmerique,  Septentrionale. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  43 

travelled  from  1802  to  1806  in  what  are  now  the  Gulf  States, 
wrote  a  botanical  appendix  to  his  Travels,  published  in  1807,  on 
which  Rafinesque  founded  his  "  Florula  Ludoviciana "  (New 
York,  1817). 

Thaddeus  Haenke  [b.  1761,  d.  in  Cochabamba,  Bolivia,  1817] 
visited  Western  North  America  with  the  Spaniards  late  in  the 
last  century,  and  made  large  collections  of  plants,  which  were 
sent  to  the  National  Museum  of  Bohemia,  at  Prague,  and  in 
part  described  in  Presl's  "  Reliquiae  Haenkianae,"  72  plates. 

Archibald  Menzies  [b.  1754,  d.  1842],  an  English  naval  sur- 
geon,' also  collected  on  our  Pacific  coast,  under  Vancouver,  in 
1780-95,  and  his  plants  found  their  way  to  Edinburgh  and  Kew. 

Captain  Wangenheim,  Surgeon  Schoepf,  of  the  Hessian 
contingent  of  the  British  army,  Olaf  Swartz,  a  Swedish  botan- 
ical explorer,  and  others,  also  gathered  plants  in  these  early  days, 
and,  in  some  instances,  published  in  Europe  their  botanical 
observations. 

Other  collectors  of  this  same  class  were  L.  A.  G.  Bosc  [i759~ 
1828],  who  made  botanical  researches  in  the  Carolinas  during 
the  last  two  years  of  the  century,  and  returned  to  France  in  1800 
with  a  herbarium  of  1,600  species.  He  also  collected  fishes, 
and  his  name  is  perpetuated  in  connection  with  at  least  two 
well-known  American  fauna.  Another  was  M.  Milbert,  who 
collected  for  Cuvier  in  New  York,  Canada,  the  Great  Lake 
region,  and  the  Mississippi  Valley  from  1817  to  1823. 

The  Baron  Palisot  de  Beauvois  [b.  1755,  d.  1820]  came  from 
Santo  Domingo  to  America  in  1791.  He  travelled  extensively, 
and  being  a  zoologist  as  well  as  a  botanist,  made  observations 
upon  our  native  animals,  particularly  the  reptiles. 

It  is  to  him  that  we  owe  the  most  carefully  recorded  of 
existing  observations  of  young  rattlesnakes  crawling  down  their 
parent  snakes'  throats  for  protection  from  enemies. 

Most  of  these  men  did  not  contribute  largely  to  the  advance- 


44  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

ment  of  American  scientific  institutes  or  affiliate  with  the  natu- 
ralists of  the  day. 

Of  quite  another  type  was  the  Count  Luigi  Castiglioni,  who 
travelled,  soon  after  the  Revolution,  throughout  the  Eastern 
States,  and  published  in  1790  two  volumes  of  his  travels.* 

The  Count  Volney  [b.  at  Craon  Feb.  3,  1757,  d.  in  Paris 
April  25,  1820],  traveller,  statesman,  and  historian,  travelled 
in  this  country  from  1795  to  1798,  and  in  1803,  while  a  Senator 
of  the  French  Republic,  published  his  famous  work  upon  the 
United  States,  containing  his  observations  upon  its  soil  and  its 
climate,  and  upon  the  Indians,  -together  with  the  first  doctrines 
of  the  language  of  the  Miamis,|  and  also  giving  a  description 
of  the  physical  and  botanical  features  of  the  country.  Volney 
was  an  admirer  and  intimate  friend  of  Franklin,  and  it  was  in  his 
home  atPassy,  we  are  told,  that  he  conceived  the  idea  of  his  most 
famous  book  "  Les  Ruines."j 

Among  the  traditions  of  Fauquier  county,  Virginia,  is  one 
which  is  of  interest  to  naturalists,  since  it  relates  to  an  incident 
showing  the  interest  of  our  first  President  in  science : 

"About  the  year  1796,"  runs  the  story,  "  at  the  close  of  a  long 
summer's  day,  a  stranger  entered  the  village  of  Warrenton.  He 
was  alone,  and  on  foot,  and  his  appearance  was  anything  but 
prepossessing.  His  garments,  coarse  and  dust-covered,  indicated 
an  individual  in  the  humble  walks.  From  a  cane  across  his 
shoulders  was  suspended  a  handkerchief  containing  his  clothing. 
Stopping  in  front  of  Turner's  tavern,  he  took  from  his  hat  a  paper 
and  handed  it  to  a  gentleman  standing  on  the  steps  ;  it  read  as 
follows  : 

"  The    celebrated    historian    and    naturalist 
VOLNEY   needs   no    recommendation    from 

"  G.  WASHINGTON." 

*  Viaggio  negli  Stati  Uniti  del  America  Settentrionali. 

t  Tableau  du  climat  et  du  sol  des  Etats-Unis  d'Amerique,  suivi  d'eclair- 
cissements  sur  la  Floride,  sur  la  colonie  frar^aise  a  Scioto  sur  quelques 
colonies  canadiennes,  et  sur  les  savages.  Paris,  1803.  8vo,  2  vols.  2d 
edition.  Paris.  Svo,  i  vol.,  pp.  494.  Map. 

J  BIGELOW,  JOHN  :  Franklin's  Home  and  Host,  in  France.  The  Century, 
May,  1888,  p.  743. 


PBESIDENTIA.L    ADDRESS.  45 

In  1801  Jefferson  began  his  eight  years  of  presidency.  Since  he 
was  the  only  man  of  science  who  has  ever  occupied  the  chief  magis- 
tracy, he  has  a  right  to  a  high  place  in  the  esteem  of  such  a  society 
as  ours,  and  I  only  regret  that,  having  spoken  of  him  at  length 
a  year  ago,  I  cannot  now  discuss  his  scientific  career  in  all  its 
aspects. 

I  then  spoke  of  the  credit  which  was  due  to  him  for  beginning 
so  early  as  1 780  to  agitate  the  idea  of  a  government  exploring 
expedition  to  the  Pacific,  which  culminated  in  the  sending  out 
by  Congress  of  the  expedition  of  Lewis  and  Clarke,  in  1803. 
Captain  Lewis  [b.  1774,  d.  1809],  the  leader  of  this  expedition, 
was  a  young  Virginian,  the  neighbor,  and  for  some  years  the 
private  secretary,  of  President  Jefferson.  He  set  out  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1803,  accompanied  by  his  associate,  Captain  Clarke,  and 
twenty-eight  men.  They  entered  the  Missouri,  May  14,  1804, 
before  the  middle  of  the  following  July  had  reached  the  great 
falls,  and  by  October  were  upon  the  western  slope,  where,  em- 
barking in  canoes  upon  the  Kouskousky,  a  branch  of  the  Colum- 
bia, they  descended  to  its  mouth,  where  they  arrived  on  the  i5th 
of  November,  1805.  The  following  spring  they  retraced  their 
course,  arriving  at  St.  Louis  in  September.*  The  results  of  the 
expedition  were  first  made  known  in  Jefferson's  message  to  Con- 
gress, read  February  19,  1806.  ' 

The  statue  of  Meriwether  Lewis  is  one  of  those  at  the  base 
of  the  Washington  Monument  in  Richmond,  Virginia,  and  is 
worthy  of  the  man  and  his  career. 

Dr.  Asa  Gray  in  a  recent  letter  says : 

"  I  have  reason  to  think  that  Michaux  suggested  to  Jefferson 
the  expedition  which  the  latter  was  active  in  sending  over  to  the 
Pacific.  I  wonder  if  he  put  off  Michaux  for  the  sake  of  having 
it  in  American  hands?  "f 

The  idea  of  an  expedition  to  the  Pacific  was  one  which  was  likely 

*  See  a  complete  bibliography  of  the  various  reports  of  this  expedition, 
by  Elliott  Coues,  in  the  Bulletin  of  the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey. 
t  See  Amer.  Journ.  Sci. ,  xii,  No.  i. 


46  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

to  occur  to  any  thoughtful  American,  and  was,  after  all,  simply 
the  continuing  of  a  plan  as  old  as  the  Spanish  days  of  discovery. 
Jefferson,  at  all  events,  was  an  active  promoter  of  all  such  enter- 
prises, and  after  a  quarter  of  a  century's  effort  the  expedition  was 
dispatched,  while  in  1805  Gen.  Z.  M.  Pike  was  sent  to  explore 
the  sources  of  the  Mississippi  river  and  the  western  parts  of 
"  Louisiana,"  penetrating  as  far  west  as  "  Pike's  Peak,"  a  name 
which  still  remains  as  a  memento  of  this  enterprise. 

The  organization  of  these  early  expeditions  marked  the  begin- 
ning of  one  of  the  most  important  portions  of  the  scientific  work 
of  our  government — the  investigation  of  the  resources  and 
natural  history  of  the  public  domain.  The  expeditions  of  Lewis 
and  Clarke,  and  of  Pike,  were  the  precursors  and  prototypes  of 
the  magnificent  organization  now  accomplishing  so  much  for 
science  under  the  charge  of  Major  J.  W.  Powell. 

As  early  as  1806,  Jefferson,  inspired  by  Patterson  and  Hassler, 
urged  the  establishment  of  a  national  Coast  Survey,  and  in  this 
was  earnestly  supported  by  his  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,  Albert 
Gallatin,  who  drew  up  a  learned  and  elaborate  project  for  its 
organization,  and  an  act  authorizing  its  establishment  was  passed 
in  1807.  During  his  administration,  in  1802,  the  first  scientific 
school  in  this  country  was  established,  the  Military  Academy  at 
West  Point.  The  Military  Academy  was  a  favorite  project  of 
General  Washington,  who  is  said  to  have  justified  his  anxiety  for 
its  establishment  by  the  remark  that  "  an  army  of  asses  led  by  a 
lion  is  vastly  superior  to  an  army  of  lions  led  by  an  ass." 

Jefferson  has  been  heartily  abused  for  not  gratifying  Alexander 
Wilson's  request  to  be  appointed  naturalist  to  Pike's  expeditions. 
It  is  possible  that  even  in  those  days  administrators  were  ham- 
pered by  lack  of  financial  resources.  It  must  also  be  remem- 
bered that  in  1804  Wilson  was  simply  an  enthusiastic  projector, 
of  ornithological  undertakings,  and  had  done  nothing  whatever 
to  establish  his  reputation  as  an  investigator. 


PRESIDENTIAL   ADDRESS.  47 

One  of  Jefferson's  first  official  acts  was  to  throw  his  presidential 
mantle  over  Priestley.  Two  weeks  after  he  became  President  of 
the  United  States  he  wrote  these  words  : 

•'It  is  with  heartfelt  satisfaction  that,  in  the  first  moments  of 
my  public  action,  I  can  hail  you  with  welcome  to  our  hind, 
tender  to  you  the  homage  of  its  respect  and  esteem,  cover  you 
under  the  protection  of  those  laws  which  were  made  for  the  wise 
and  good  like  you,  and  disclaim  the  legitimacy  of  that  libel  on 
legislators  which,  under  the  form  of  a  law,  was  for  some  time 
placed  among  them." 

*  *  *  "  Yours  is  one  of  the  few  lives  precious  to  mankind, 
and  for  the  continuance  of  which  every  thinking  man  is  solicitous. 
Bigots  may  be  an  exception.  What  an  effort,  my  clear  sir,  of 
bigotry  in  politics  and  religion  have  we  gone  through.  *  *  * 
All  advances  in  science  were  prescribed  as  innovations.  They 
pretended  to  praise  and  encourage  education,  but  it  was  to  be  the 
education  of  our  ancestors.  We  were  to  look  backwards,  not 
forwards  for  improvement ;  the  President  (Washington)  himself 
declaring  in  one  of  his  answers  to  addresses  that  we  were  never 
to  expect  to  go  beyond  them  in  real  science.  This  was  the  real 
ground  of  all  the  attacks  on  you  ;  those  who  live  by  mystery  and 
charlatanerie  fearing  you  would  render  them  useless  by  simpli- 
fying the  Christian  philosophy,  the  most  sublime  and  benevo- 
lent, but  most  perverted  system  that  ever  shone  on  man,  en- 
deavored to  crush  your  well-earned  and  well-deserved  fame."* 

XIII. 

With  the  close  of  the  third  decade  ended  the  first  third  of  a 
century  since  the  Declaration  of  Independence.  We  have  now 
passed  in  review  a  considerable  number  of  illustrious  names  and 
have  noted  the  inception  of  many  worthy  undertakings. 

"  Still,  however,"  in  the  words  of  Silliman,  "•  although  indi- 
viduals were  enlightened,  no  serious  impression  was  produced 
on  the  public  mind  ;  a  few  lights  were,  indeed,  held  out,  but 
they  were  lights  twinkling  in  an  almost  impervious  gloom. "f 

This  was  a  state  of  affairs  not  peculiar  to  America.  A  gloom 
no  less  oppressive  had  long  obscured  the  intellectual  atmosphere 

"Jefferson's  Works  (T.  J.  Randolph  ed.)>  1830,  iii,  461. 
t  Silliman,  i,  37. 


48  BIOLOGICAL   SOCIETY   OF   WASHINGTON. 

of  the  old  world.  There  were  a  goodly  number  of  men  of 
science,  and  many  important  discoveries  were  being  made,  but 
no  bonds  had  yet  been  formed  to  connect  the  interests  of  the  men 
of  science  and  the  men  of  affairs. 

Speculative  science,  in  the  nature  of  things,  can  only  interest 
and  attract  scholarly  men.  and  though  its  results,  concisely  and 
attractively  stated,  may  have  a  passing  interest  to  a  certain  por- 
tion of  every  community,  it  is  only  by  its  practical  applications 
that  it  secures  the  hearty  support  of  the  community  at  large. 

Huxley,  in  his  recent  discourse  upon  "  The  Advance  of  Science 
in  the  Last  Half  Century,"*  has  touched  upon  this  subject  in  a 
most  suggestive  and  instructive  manner,  and  has  shown  that  Bacon, 
with  all  his  wisdom,  exerted  little  direct  beneficial  influence  upon 
the  advancement  of  natural  knowledge,  which  has  after  all  been 
chiefly  forwarded  by  men  like  Galileo  and  Harvey,  Boyle  and 
Newton,  "who  would  have  done  their  work  quite  as  well  if 
neither  Bacon  nor  Descartes  had  ever  propounded  their  views 
respecting  the  manner  in  which  scientific  investigation  should  be 
pursued." 

I  think  we  should  look  upon  Bacon  as  the  prophet  of  modern 
scientific  thought,  rather  than  its  founder.  It  is  no  doubt  true, 
as  Huxley  has  said,  that  his  "  scientific  insight  "  was  not  sufficient 
to  enable  him  to  shape  the  future  course  of  scientific  philosophy, 
but  it  is  scarcely  true  that  he  attached  any  undue  value  to  the 
practical  advantages  which  the  world  as  a  whole,  and  incident- 
ally science  itself,  were  to  reap  from  the  applications  of  scientific 
methods  to  the  investigation  of  nature. 

Even  though  the  investigations  of  Descartes,  Newton,  Leibnitz, 
Boyle,  Torricelli,  and  Malpighi,  had  directly  helped  no  man  to 
either  wealth  or  comfort,  the  cumulative  results  of  their  labors, 
and  those  of  their  pupils  and  associates,  resulted  in  a  condition 

*  WOOD,  T.  H.  :  The  Reign  of  Victoria;  a  survey  of  Fifty  Years  of  Pro- 
gress. London,  1887. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  49 

of  scientific  knowledge  from  which,  sooner  or  later,  utilitarian 
results  must  necessarily  have  sprung. 

It  is  true,  as  Huxley  tells  us,  that  at  the  beginning  of  this  cen- 
tury weaving  and  spinning  were  still  carried  on  with  the  old 
appliances  ;  true  that  nobody  could  travel  faster  by  sea  or  by  land 
than  at  any  previous  time  in  the  world's  history,  and  true  that 
King  George  could  send  a  message  from  London  to  York  no 
faster  than  King  John  might  have  done.  Metals  were  still 
worked  from  their  ores  by  immemorial  rule  of  thumb,  and  the 
centre  of  the  iron  trade  of  these  islands  was  among  the  oak  for- 
ests of  Sussex,  while  the  utmost  skill  of  the  British  mechanic  did 
not  get  beyond  the  production  of  a  coarse  watch. 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  although  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth 
century  was  illuminated  by  a  host  of  great  names  in  science, 
chemists,  biologists,  geologists,  English,  French,  German,  and 
Italian,  the  deepening  and  broadening  of  natural  knowledge  had 
produced  next  to  no  immediate  practical  benefits.  Still  I  cannot 
believe  that  Bacon,  the  prophet,  would  have  been  so  devoid  of 
••  scientific  insight "  as  to  have  failed  to  foresee  at  this  time  the 

o 

ultimate  results  of  all  this  intellectual  activity. 
But  Huxley  says : 

fc>  Even  if,  at  this  time,  Francis  Bacon  could  have  returned  to 
the  scene  of  his  greatness  and  of  his  littleness,  he  must  have  re- 
garded the  philosophic  world  which  praised  and  disregarded  his 
precepts  with  great  disfavor.  If  ghosts  are  consistent,  he  would 
have  said,  "  these  people  are  all  wasting  their  time,  just  as  Gil- 
bert, and  Kepler,  and  Galileo,  and  my  worthy  physician  Harvey 
did  in  my  day.  VVhere  are  the  fruits  of  the  restoration  of  science 
which  I  promised?  This  accumulation  of  bare  knowledge  is  all 
very  well,  but  ctii  bono?  Not  one  of  these  people  is  doing  what  I 
told  him  specially  to  do,  and  seeking  that  secret  of  the  cause  of 
forms,  which  will  enable  him  to  deal  at  will  with  matter  and 
superinduce  new  nature  upon  old  foundations." 

As  Huxley,  however,  proceeds  himself  to  show,  in  the  dis- 
cussion which  immediately  follows  this  passage,  a  "  new  nature, 


50  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY   OF   WASHINGTON. 

begotten  by  science  upon  fact,"  has  been  born  within  the  past 
few  decades,  and  pressing  itself  daily  and  hourly  upon  our  atten- 
tion, has  worked  miracles  which  have  not  only  modified  the  whole 
future  of  the  lives  of  mankind,  but  has  reacted  constantly  upon 
the  progress  of  science  itself. 

It  is  to  the  development  of  this  new  nature,  then  in  its  very 
infancy,  that  we  must  look  for  the  revival  of  interest  in  science 
on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

The  second  decade  of  the  century  was  marked  by  a  great 
accession  of  interest  in  the  sciences.  The  second  war  with 
Great  Britain  having  ended,  the  country,  for  the  first  time  since 
colonial  days,  became  sufficiently  tranquil  for  peaceful  attention 
to  literature  and  philosophy.  The  end  of  the  Napoleonic  wars 
and  the  restoration  of  tranquillity  to  Europe  tended  to  scientific 
advances  on  the  other  side  of  the  Atlantic,  and  the  results  of  the 
labors  of  Cuvier,  whose  glory  was  now  approaching  its  zenith, 
of  Brongniart,  of  Blainville,  of  Jussieu,  of  Decandolle,  of  Werner, 
of  Hutton,  of  Buckland,  of  De  la  Beche,  of  Magendie,  of  Hum- 
boldt,  Daubuisson,  Berzelius,  Von  Buch,  of  Herschel,  of  Laplace, 
of  Young,  of  Fresnel,  of  Oersted,  of  Cavendish,  of  Lavoisier,  Wol- 
laston,  Davy,  and  Sir  William  Hooker,  were  eagerly  welcomed 
by  hundreds  in  America. 

"In  truth,"  wrote  one  who  was  among  the  most  active  in 
promoting  these  tendencies,  "  in  truth,  a  thirst  for  the  Natural 
vSciences  seemed  already  to  pervade  the  United  States  like  the 
progress  of  an  epidemic." 

The  author  of  these  enthusiastic  words  was  Amos  Eaton 
[b.  in  Chatham,  N.  Y.,  1776,  d.  May  6,  1842],  one  of  the  most 
interesting  men  of  his  day.  In  1816,  at  the  age  of  fortv,  he 
abandoned  the  practice  of  law  and  went  to  New  Haven  to 
attend  Silliman's  lectures  on  Mineralogy  and  Geology.  He  was 
a  man  of  great  force  and  untiring  energy,  and  one  of  the  pio- 
neers of  American  geology  ;  though  the  name,  "  father  of  Amer- 


PRESIDENTIAL   ADDRESS.  51 

ican  geology,"  sometimes  applied  to  him,  would  seem  to  belong 
more  appropriately  to  Maclure,  or,  perhaps,  to  Mitchill.  He- 
was,  however,  only  some  eight  years  later  than  Maclure  in 
beginning  geological  field-work.  Eaton's  "  Index  to  the  Geology 
of  the  Northern  States  of  America,"  printed  in  1817,  was  the  first 
strictly  American  treatise,  and  seems  to  have  had  a  very  stimu- 
lating effect.  He  was  pre-eminently  an  agitator  and  an  educator. 
He  travelled  many  thousands  of  miles  on  foot  throughout  New 
England  and  New  York,  delivering,  in  the  meantime,  at  the 
principal  towns,  short  courses  of  lectures  on  natural  history. 
In  March,  1817,  having  received  an  invitation  to  aid  in  the  intro- 
duction of  the  Natural  Sciences  in  Williams  College,  his  Alma 
Mater,  he  delivered  a  course  of  lectures  in  Williamstown. 
<k  Such,"  he  remarks,  "  was  the  zeal  at  this  institution  that  an 
uncontrollable  enthusiasm  for  natural  history  took  possession  of 
every  mind  ;  and  other  departments  of  learning  were,  for  a  time, 
crowded  out  of  the  college.  The  authorities  allowed  twelve 
students  each  day  (seventy-two  per  week)  to  devote  their  whole 
time  to  the  collection  of  minerals  and  plants,  in  lieu  of  all  other 
exercises."* 

In  April,  1818,  he  wen*  to  Albany  on  the  special  invitation 
of  Gov.  DeWitt  Qinton  and  delivered  a  course  of  lectures  on 
Natural  History.  "  In  Albany  I  found,"  wrote  he,  "  Dr.  T. 
Romeyn  Beck,  and  in  Troy,  Doctors  Burrett,  Robbins,  and 
Dale,  zealous  beyond  description  in  the  cause  of  Natural  Science. 
By  the  exertions  of  these  gentlemen  a  taste  for  the  study  of 
Nature  was  strongly  excited  in  those  two  cities,  especially  for 
that  of  geology.  They,  together  with  several  others,  had  become 
members  of  the  New  York  Lyceum  of  Natural  History,  and,  in 
the  fall  of  1818,  established  a  society  of  the  same  name  and 
upon  a  similar  plan  in  Troy.  Collections  were  made  with 
such  zeal  that,  in  the  course  of  a  few  months,  Troy  could  boai>t 

*  Geological  Text-Book,  2d  ed.,  1832,  p.  16. 


52  BIOLOGICAL  SOCIETY  OF  WASHINGTON. 

of  a  more  extensive  collection  of  American  geological  specimens 
than  Yale  College,  or  any  other  institution  upon  this  continent."* 

"  In  this  period,"  remarked  Bache,  u  the  prosecution  of  mathe- 
matics and  physical  science  was  neglected  ;  indeed  barely  kept 
alive  by  the  calls  for  boundary  and  land  surveys  of  the  more  ex- 
tended class,  by  the  exertions  necessary  in  the  lecture-room,  or  by 
isolated  volunteer  efforts. 

"As  the  country  was  explored  and  settled  the  unworked  mine 
of  natural  history  was  laid  open,  and  the  attention  of  almost  all 
the  cultivators  of  science  was  turned  toward  the  development  of 
its  riches. 

"  Descriptive  natural  history  is  the  pursuit  which  emphatically 
made  that  period.  As  its  experiment  may  be  taken  the  admira- 
ble descriptive  mineralogy  of  Cleaveland,  which  seemed  to  fill  the 
measures  of  that  day  and  be,  as  it  were,  its  chief  embodiment, 
appearing  just  as  the  era  was  passing  away."f 

The  leading  spirits  of  the  day  seem  to  have  been  Si  Hi  man, 
Hare,  Maclure,  Mitchill,  Gibbs,  Cleaveland,  DeWitt  Clinton, 
and  Caspar  Wistar. 

Names  familiar  to  us  of  the  present  generation  began  now  to 
appear  in  scientific  literature :  Isaac*  Lea  began  to  print  his 
memoirs  on  the  Unionidcz ;  Edward  Hitchcock,  principal  of  the 
Deerfield  Academy,  was  writing  his  first  papers  on  the  geology 
of  Massachusetts ;  Prof.  Chester  Dewey,  of  Williams  College, 
[b.  1781,  d.  1867],  afterwards  known  to  us  all  from  his  excellent 
work  upon  the  Carices,  was  discussing  the  mineralogy  and  geol- 
ogy of  Massachusetts ;  Dr.  John  Torrey,  also  to  be  famous  as  a 
botanist,  was  then  devoting  his  attention  to  mineralogy  and 

*  The  Troy  Lyceum  of  Natural  History  was  incorporated  in  [819,  and  a 
lectureship  was  created,  filled  by  Mr.  Eaton  (Stlliman's  Journal,  ii,  173). 
In  1820  a  similar  association,  "  The  Hudson  Association  for  Improvement 
in  Science,"  was  founded  in  the  city  of  Hudson,  and  in  1821  the  Delaware 
Chemical  and  Geological  Society. 

t  Presidential  Address  Am.  Assoc.  Adv.  Sci.,  1851,  pp.  vi,  xlvi. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  53 

chemistry  ;  Dr.  Jacob  Porter  was  making  botanical  observations 
in  central  Massachusetts  ;  quaint  old  Caleb  Atwater,  at  that  time 
almost  the  only  scientific  observer  west  of  the  Alleghanies,  was 
discussing  the  origin  of  prairies,  meteorology,  botanv,  geology, 
mineralogy,  and  scenery  of  the  Ohio  country,  and  a  little  later 
the  remains  of  mammoths. 

Prof.  J.  W.  Webster,  of  Boston,  was  making  general  studies 
in  geology  ;  the  Rev.  Elias  Cornelius  and  Mr.  John  Grammar 
were  writing  of  the  geology  of  Virginia ;  Mr.  J.  A.  Kain,  upon 
that  of  Tennessee,  I.  P.  Brace,  that  of  Connecticut,  and  James 
Pierce,  that  of  New  Jersey. 

To  this  period  belonged  the  brilliant  Constantine  Rafinesque, 
with  Torrey,  Silliman,  Cleaveland,  Gibbs,  James,  Schoolcraft, 
Gage,  Akerly,  Mitchill,  Dana,  Beck,  and  Featherstonhaugh. 

Dr.  Henry  R.  Schoolcraft,  afterwards  prominent  in  ethnology, 
printed,  in  1819,  his  "View  of  the  Lead  Mines  of  Missouri," 
the  first  from  American  contributors  to  economic  geology  ;  and 
in  the  same  year  his  ik  Transallegania,"  a  mineralogical  poem, 
probably  the  last  as  well  as  the  first  of  its  kind  written  in 
America.  In  1821  he  published  a  scholarly  "Account  of  the 
Native  Copper  on  the  Southern  shore  of  Lake  Superior."* 

Mineralogy  and  geology  were  the  most  popular  of  the  sciences. 
American  Geology  dated  its  beginning  from  this  previous 
decade.  Prof.  S.  L.  Mitchill  was  one  of  the  first  to  call 
attention  to  the  teachings  of  Kirwan  and  the  pioneers  of  Eu- 
ropean geology,  and  very  early  in  the  century  began  to 
instruct  the  students  of  Columbia  College  in  the  principles 
of  geology  as  then  understood.  He  published  Observations 
on  the  Geology  of  America,  and  also  edited  a  New  York  edition 
of  Cuvier's  "  History  of  the  Earth,"  contributing  to  this  work 
an  appendix  which  was  constantly  quoted  by  early  writers. 

The  first  geological  explorer  was  William  Maclure  [b.  in  Ayr, 

*Amer.  Jour.  Science,  iii,  pp.  201-210. 


54  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

Scotland,  1763,  d.  in  San  Angel,  Mexico,  Mar.  23,  1840],  a 
Scotch  merchant  who  amassed  a  large  fortune  by  commercial 
connections  with  this  country,  and  became  a  citizen  of  the  United 
States  about  1796.  His  most  important  service  to  American 
science  was  that  of  a  patron,  for  he  was  a  liberal  supporter  of  the 
infant  Academy  of  Sciences  in  Philadelphia,  and  for  twenty-two 
years  its  president,  besides  being  an  upholder  of  other  important 
enterprises. 

The  publication  in  1809  of  his  "Observations  on  the  Geology 
of  the  United  States"  marks  the  beginning  of  American  geo- 
graphical geology  and  the  first  attempt  at  a  geological  survey  of 
the  United  States.  This  had  long  been  the  object  of  his  ambi- 
tion, and,  in  order  to  prepare  himself  for  the  task,  he  had  spent 
several  years  in  travel  throughout  Europe,  making  observations 
and  collecting  objects  in  natural  history,  which  he  forwarded  to 
the  country  of  his  adoption. 

His  undertaking  was  undoubtedly  a  remarkable  one.  u  He 
went  forth  with  his  hammer  in  his  hand  and  his  wallet  on  his 
shoulder,  pursuing  his  researches  in  every  direction,  visiting 
almost  every  State  aud  Territory,  wandering  often  amidst  path- 
less tracts  and  dreary  solitudes  until  he  had  crossed  and  re- 
crossed  the  Alleghany  mountains  not  less  than  fifty  times.  He 
encountered  all  the  privations  of  hunger,  thirst,  fatigue,  and  ex- 
posure, month  after  month  and  year  after  year,  until  his  indom- 
itable spirit  had  conquered  every  difficulty  and  crowned  his 
enterprise  with  success,"*  and  after  the  publication  of  his  me- 
moir he  devoted  eight  years  more  to  collecting  materials  for  a 
second  and  revised  addition. 

The  geological  map  of  the  United  States,  published  in  1809, 
appears  to  have  been  the  first  of  the  kind  ever  attempted  for  an 
entire  country.  Smith's  geological  map  of  England  was  six 
years  later,  and  Greenough's  still  subsequent  in  date. 

*  MARTIN:  Memoir  of  William  Maclure,  p.  n. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  55 

The  publication  in  London  in  1813  of  Bakewell's  "  Introduc- 
tion to  Geology "  seems  to  have  given  a  great  stimulus  to  geo- 
logical researches  in  this  country,  as  may  be  judged  from  the 
publication  of  an  American  edition  a  year«or  two  later. 

Mitchill,  Bruce,  and  Maclure  soon  had  a  goodly  band  of  asso- 
ciates. Naturalists  were  not  confined  to  limited  specialties  in 
those  days,  and  we  find  all  the  chemists,  botanists,  and  zoolo- 
gists absorbed  in  the  consideration  of  geological  problems. 
Maclure  and  most  of  the  Americans  were  disciples  of  Werner. 

Silliman,  writing  in  1818,  said: 

"A  grand  outline  has  recently  been  drawn  by  Mr.  Maclure 
with  a  masterly  hand  and  with  a  vast  extent  of  personal  obser- 
vation and  labour ;  but,  to  fill  up  the  detail,  both  observation  and 
labour  still  more  extensive  are  demanded  ;  nor  can  the  object  be 
effected  till  more  good  geologists  are  formed  and  distributed  over 
our  extensive  territory." 

On  the  6th  of  September,  1819,  the  American  Geological 
Society  was  organized  in  the  philosophical  room  of  Yale  Col- 
lege, an  event  of  great  importance  in  the  history  of  science, 
hastening,  as  it  seems  to  have  done,  the  establishment  of  State 
surveys  and  stimulating  observation  throughout  the  countrv. 
This  Society,  which  continued  in  existence  until  about  1826, 
may  fairly  be  considered  the  nucleus  of  the  Association  of  Ameri- 
can Geologists  and  Naturalists,  and,  consequently,  of  the  Ameri- 
can Association  for  the  Advancement  of  Science.  Members 
appended  to  their  names  the  symbols,  M.  A.  G.  S.,  and  it  was 
for  a  time  the  most  active  of  American  scientific  societies. 

The  characteristics  of  the  leading  spirits  were  summed  up  by 
.Eaton  at  the  time  of  its  beginning : 

"  The  President,  William  Maclure,  has  already  struck  out  the 
grand  outline  of  North  American  geographical  geology.  The 
first  Vice-President,  Col.  G.  Gibbs,  has  collected  more  facts  and 
amassed  more  geological  and  mineralogical  specimens  than  any 
other  individual  of  the  age.  The  second  Vice-President,  Pro- 
fessor Silliman,  gives  the  true  scientific  dress  to  all  the  naked 


56  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

mineralogical  subjects  which  are  furnished  to  his  hand.  The 
third  Vice-President,  Professor  Cleaveland,  is  successfully  em- 
ployed in  elucidating  and  familiarizing  those  interesting  scenes  ; 
and  thus  smoothing  the  rugged  paths  of  the  student.  Professor 
Mitchill  has  amassed  a  large  store  of  materials  and  annexed  them 
tq  the  labors  of  Cuvier  and  Jameson.  The  drudgery  of  climbing 
cliffs  and  descending  into  fissures  and  caverns,  and  of  traversing 
in  all  directions  our  most  rugged  mountainous  districts,  to  ascer- 
tain the  distinctive  characters,  number,  and  order  of  our  strata, 
has  devolved  upon  me."* 

Eaton  has  very  fairly  defined  his  own  position  among  the  early 
geologists,  which  was  that  of  an  explorer  and  pioneer.  The  epi- 
thet, "  Father  of  American  Geology,"  which  has  sometimes  been 
applied  to  him,  might  more  justly  be  bestowed  upon  Maclure,  or 
even  upon  Mitchill.  The  name  of  Amos  Eaton  [b.  1776,  cl. 
1872]  will  always  be  memorable,  on  account  of  his  connection 
with  the  geological  survey  of  New  York,  which  was  begun  in 
1820,  at  the  private  expense  of  Hon.  Stephen  Van  Rensselaer ; 
also  as  the  founder,  in  1824,  of  the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Insti- 
tute, the  first  of  its  class  on  the  continent. 

The  State  of  New  York  was  not  pre-eminently  prompt  in 
establishing  an  official  survey,  but  the  liberality  of  Van  Rensse- 
laer and  the  energy  of  Eaton  gave  to  New  York  the  honor  of 
attaching  the  names  of  its  towns  and  counties  to  a  large  num- 
ber of  the  geological  formations  of  North  America. 

In  these  early  surveys  Eaton  was  associated  with  Dr.  Theo- 
dore Romeyn  Beck  and  Mr.  H.  Webster,  naturalist  and  collec- 
tor, one  of  the  first  being  a  survey  of  the  county  of  Albany,  un- 
der the  special  direction  of  a  County  Agricultural  Society,  fol- 
lowed by  similar  surveys  of  Rensselaer  county  and  Saratoga 
county  and  others  along  the  Erie  Canal. 

In  July,  1818,  Professor  Silliman  began  the  publication  of  the 
American  Journal  of  Science,  which  has  been  for  more  than 
two-thirds  of  a  century  the  most  prominent  register  of  the  scien- 

*  Index  to  the  Geology  of  the  Northern  States,    ad  ed.     1820.    p.  viii. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  57 

tific  progress  of  this  continent.  Silliman's  journal  succeeded, 
and  far  more  than  replaced,  the  American  Mineralogical  Jour- 
nal, the  earliest  of  American  scientific  periodicals,  which  was 
established  in  New  York  1810  by  Dr.  Archibald  Bruce,  and 
which  was  discontinued  after  the  close  of  the  first  volume,  in 
1814,  on  account  of  the  illness  and  untimely  death  of  its  pro- 
jector.* The  Mineralogical  Journal  was  not  so  limited-  in 
scope  as  in  name,  and  was  for  a  time  the  principal  organ  of 
our  scientific  specialists. f 

We  can  but  admire  the  spirit  of  Silliman,  who  remarks  in  the 
preface  to  the  third  volume  : 

"  It  must  require  several  years  from  the  commencement  of  the 
work  to  decide  the  question  [whether  it  is  to  be  supported] ,  and 
the  editor  (if  God  continues  his  life  and  health)  will  endeavour 
to  prove  himself  neither  impatient  nor  querulous  during  the  time 
that  his  countrymen  hold  the  question  undecided,  whether  there 
shall  be  an  American  Journal  of  Science  and  Arts" 

In  the  fall  of  1822  he  announced  that  a  trial  of  four  years  had 
decided  the  point  that  the  American  public  would  support  this 
journal. 

Prior  to  the  establishing  of  Silliman's  journal,  the  principal 
organs  of  American  science  were  the  Medical  Repository, 
commenced  in  1798,  of  which  Dr.  Mitchill  was  the  chief 
proprietor ;  the  New  York  Medical  and  Physical  Journal, 
conducted  chiefly  by  Dr.  Hosack  ;  the  Boston  Journal  of  Phi- 
losophy and  the  Arts,  and  other  similar  periodicals.  Our 
students  looked  chiefly,  however,  to  the  English  journals — 
Tilloch's  Philosophical  Magazine  and  Nicholson's  Journal  of 
•Natural  Philosophy,  and  later,  Thomson's  Annals  of  Phil- 
osophy, the  Annales  de  Chimie. 

*  "  No  future  historian  of  American  science  will  fail  to  commemorate 
this  work  us  our  earliest  purely  scientific  journal,  supported  by  original 
American  communications"  said  Silliman  in  his  prospectus,  1817. 

fThe  only  copies  of  this  journal  known  to  be  in  existence  are  in  the  N. 
Y.  State  Library  and  the  Harvard  Library. 


58  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

The  American  Monthly  Magazine,  established  in  1814  by 
Charles  Brockden  Brown,  was  fully  as  much  devoted  to  science 
as  to  literature,  and  an  examination  of  this  and  other  journals 
of  the  early  portion  of  the  century  will,  I  think,  satisfy  the  student 
that  scientific  subjects  were  more  seriously  considered  by  our 
ancestors  than  by  the  Americans  of  to-day.  The  American 
Monthly  published  elaborate  reviews  of  technical  works,  such  as 
Cleaveland's  Mineralogy,  and  summaries  of  the  world's  progress 
in  science,  as  well  as  the  monthly  proceedings  of  all  the  scientific 
societies  in  New  York,  and  papers  on  systematic  zoology  and 
botany  by  Rafinesque. 

In  1812  the  American  Antiquarian  Society  was  established  at 
Worcester,  and  before  1820,  when  its  first  volume  of  transactions 
appeared,  had  collected  6,000  books  and  "a  respectable  cabinet." 
This  was  a  pioneer  effort  in  ethnological  science.  Archceologia 
Americana  contained  papers  by  Mitch  ill,  Atwater,  and  others, 
chiefly  relating  to  the  aboriginal  population  of  America.  The 
name  of  Isaiah  Thomas,  LL.  D.  [b.  in  Boston  1749,  d.  in  Wor- 
cester 1831],  the  founder  and  first  president  of  the  society,  who 
at  his  own  expense  erected  a  building  for  its  accommodation  and 
endowed  its  first  researches,  should  be  remembered  with  grati- 
tude by  American  naturalists.  He  was  one  of  the  most  eminent 
of  American  printers,  and  styled  by  DeWarville  "  the  Didot  of 
America." 

In  1812  the  Academy  of  Natural  Sciences  of  Philadelphia 
was  founded,  the  outgrowth  of  a  social  club,  whose  members, 
we  are  told,  had  no  conception  of  the  importance  of  the  work 
they  were  undertaking  when,  in  a  spirit  of  burlesque,  they 
assumed  the  title  of  an  academy  of  learning. 

In  1816  the  Coast  Survey,  after  years  of  discussion,  was  placed 
in  action  under  the  supervision  of  Hassler  (who  had  been  ap- 
pointed its  head  as  early  as  1811),  but,  two  years  later,  the  work 
£oing  on  too  slowly  to  please  the  Government,  it  was  stopped, 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  59 

The  Linnaaan  Society  of  New  England,  established  in  Boston 
about  this  time,  was  the  precursor  of  the  Boston  Society  of 
Natural  Science. 

The  publication  of  an  American  edition  of  Rees's  Cyclopaedia, 
in  Philadelphia,  was  begun  in  1810,  and  the  47*h  volume  com- 
pleted in  1824.  This  was  an  event  in  the  history  of  American 
science,  for  it  furnished  employment  and  thus  fostered  the  inves- 
tigations of  several  eminent  naturalists,  among  whom  were  Alex- 
ander Wilson,  Thomas  Say,  and  Ord  ;  while,  at  the  same  time,  it 
fostered  a  taste  for  science  in  the  United  States  and  gave  currency 
to  several  rather  epoch-making  articles,  such  as  Say's  upon 
Conchology  and  Entomology. 

Mr.  Bradbury,  the  publisher  of  this  Cyclopaedia,  was  the  first 
of  a  goodly  company  of  liberal  and  far-seeing  publishers  who 
have  done  much  for  science  in  this  country  by  their  patronage  of 
important  scientific  publications. 

In  1817  Josiah  Meigs,  Commissioner  of  the  Land  Office,  issued 
a  circular  to  the  several  Registers  of  the  Land  Offices  of  the 
United  States  requiring  them  to  keep  daily  meteorological  obser- 
vations, and  also  to  report  upon  such  phenomena  as  the  times  of 
the  unfolding  of  leaves  of  plants  and  the  dates  of  flowering,  the 
migrations  of  birds  and  fishes,  the  dates  of  spawning  of  fishes, 
the  hibernation  of  animals,  the  history  of  locusts  and  other  in- 
sects in  large  numbers,  the  falling  of  stones  and  other  bodies  from 
the  atmosphere,  the  direction  of  meteors,  and  discoveries  rela- 
tive to  the  antiquities  of  the  country. 

It  does  not  appear  that  anything  ever  resulted  from  this  step, 
but  it  is  referred  to  as  an  indication  that,  seventy  years  ago,  our 
Government  was  willing  to  use  its  civil  service  officials  in  the 
interest  of  science.  A  few  years  later  the  same  idea  was  carried 
into  effect  by  the  Smithsonian  Institution. 

In  those  early  days  each  of  the  principal  cities  had  public  mu- 
seums founded  and  supported  by  private  enterprise.  Their  pro- 


60  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

prietors  were  men  of  scientific  tastes,  who  affiliated  with  the  nat- 
uralists of  the  day  and  placed  their  collections  freely  at  the  dis- 
posal of  investigators. 

The  earliest  was  the  Philadelphia  Museum,  established  by 
Charles  Wilson  Peale,  and  for  a  time  housed  in  the  building  of 
the  American  Philosophical  Society.  In  1800  it  was  ful.l  of  pop- 
ular attractions. 

"  There  were  a  mammoth's  tooth  from  the  Ohio,  and  a  woman's 
shoe  from  Canton  ;  nests  of  the  kind  used  to  make  soup  of,  and  a 
Chinese  fan  six  feet  long;  bits  of  asbestos,  belts  of  wampum, 
stuffed  birds  and  feathers  from  the  Friendly  Islands,  scalps,  tom- 
ahawks, and  long  lines  of  portraits  of  great  men  of  the  Revolu- 
tionary War.  To  visit  the  Museum,  to  wander  through  the  rooms, 
play  upon  the  organ,  examine  the  rude  electrical  machine,  and 
have  a  profile  drawn  by  the  physiognomitian,  were  pleasures 
from  which  no  stranger  to  the  city  ever  refrained." 

Dr.  Hare's  oxyhydrogen  blow-pipe  was  shown  in  this  Museum 
by  Mr.  Rubens  Peale  as  early  as  1810. 

The  Baltimore  Museum  was  managed  by  Rembrandt  Peale, 
and  was  in  existence  as  early  as  1815  and  as  late  as  1830.* 

Earlier  efforts  were  made,  however,  in  Philadelphia.  Dr. 
Chovet,  of  that  city,  had  a.  collection  of  wax  anatomical  models 
made  by  him  in  Europe,  and  Prof.  John  Morgan,  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  Pennsylvania,  who  learned  his  methods  from  the  Hunters 
in  London  and  Su£  in  Paris,  was  also  forming  such  a  collection 
before  the  Revolution. f 

The  Columbian  Museum  and  TurrelFs  Museum,  in  Boston, 
are  spoken  of  in  the  annals  of  the  day,  and  there  was  a  small 
collection  in  the  attic  of  the  State  House  in  Hartford. 


*  "  Baltimore  has  a  handsome  museum  superintended  by  one  of  the 
Peale  family,  well  known  for  their  devotion  to  natural  science  and  to 
works  of  art.  It  is  not  their  fault  if  the  specimens  which  they  are  enabled 
to  display  in  the  latter  department  are  very  inferior  to  their  splendid  ex- 
hibitions in  the  former." — MRS.  TROLLOPE,  Domestic  Manners  of  the 
Americans.  London,  1831. 

t  Trans.  Amer.  Phil.  Soc.,  ii,  p.  366. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  61 

The  Western  Museum,  in  Cincinnati,  was  founded  about  1815, 
by  Robert  Best,  M.  D.,  afterwards  of  Lexington,  Ky.,  who  seems 
to  have  been  a  capable  collector,  and  who  contributed  matter  to 
Godman's  "  American  Natural  History."  In  1818  a  society  styled 
the  Western  Museum  Society  was  organized  among  the  citizens, 
which,  though  scarcely  a  scientific  organization,  seems  to  have 
t-iken  a  somewhat  liberal  and  public-spirited  view  of  what  a  mu- 
seum should  be.  To  the  naturalist  of  to-day  there  is  something 
refreshing  in  such  simple  appeals  as  the  following : 

u  In  collecting  the  fishes  and  reptiles  of  the  Ohio  the  managers 
will  need  all  the  aid  which  their  fellow-citizens  may  feel  disposed 
to  give  them.  Although  not  a  very  interesting  department  of 
zoology,  no  object  of  the  Society  offers  so  great  a  prospect  of 
novelty  as  that  which  embraces  these  animals. 

"  The  obscure  and  neglected  race  of  insects  will  not  be  over- 
looked, and  any  specimen  sufficiently  perfect  to  be  introduced 
into  a  cabinet  of  entomology  will  be  thankfully  received."* 

Major  John  Eatton  LeConte,  U.  S.  A.  [b.  1784,  d.  1860],  was 
a  very  successful  student  of  botany  and  zoology.  He  published 
many  botanical  papers  and  contributions  to  descriptive  zoology, 
and  also  in  Paris,  in  conjunction  with  Boisduval,  the  first 
instalment  of  a  work,  of  which  he  was  really  sole  author,  upon  the 
Lepidoptera  of  North  America. f 

The  elder  brother,  Dr.  Lewis  LeConte  [b.  1782,  d.  1838], 
was  equally  eminent  as  an  observer,  and  was,  for  forty  years,  one 
of  the  most  prominent  naturalists  in  the  South.  On  hfs  planta- 
tion in  Liberty  county,  Ga.,  he  established  a  botanical  garden 
and  a  chemical  laboratory.  His  zoological  manuscripts  were  de- 
stroyed in  the  burning  of  Columbia  just  at  the  close  of  the  civil 
war,  but  his  observations,  which  he  was  averse  to  publishing  in 
his  own  name,  were,  we  are  told,  embodied  in  the  writings  of  his 

*An  Address  to  the  people  of  the  Western  Country,  dated  Cincinnati, 
Sept.  15,  1818,  and  signed  by  Elijah  Slack,  James  Findlay,  William  Steele, 
Jesse  Embrees,  and  Daniel  Drake,  Managers. 

t  Histoire  Generate  et  Iconographie. 


62  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY   OF   WASHINGTON. 

brother,  of  Stephen  Elliott,  of  the  Scotch  botanist  Gordon,*  of 
Dr.  William  Baldwin,  and  others. f  J 

Stephen  Elliott,  of  Charleston,  South  Carolina  [b.  1711,  d. 
1830],  was  a  graduate  of  Yale  in  the  class  of  1791,  and,  while 
prominent  in  the  political  and  financial  circles  of  his  State,  found 
time  to  cultivate  science.  He  founded  in  1813  the  Literary  and 
Philosophical  Society  of  South  Carolina,  and  was  its  first  presi- 
dent;  and  in  1829  was  elected  Professor  of  Natural  History  and 
Botany  in  the  South  Carolina  Medical  College,  which  he  aided 
to  establish.  He  published  "  The  Botany  of  South  Carolina  and 
Georgia"  (Charleston,  1821—27),  having  been  assisted  in  its 
preparation  by  Dr.  James  McBride ;  and  had  an  extensive 
museum  of  his  own  gathering.  The  Elliott  Society  of  Natural 
History,  founded  in  1853,  or  before,  and  subsequently  con- 
tinued under  the  name  of  the  Elliott  Society  of  Science  and 
Art,  1859-75?  was  named  in  memory  of  this  public-spirited 
man. 

Jacob  Green  [b.  1790,  d.  1841],  at  different  times  professor 
in  the  College  of  New  Jersey  and  in  Jefferson  Medical  College, 
was  one  of  the  old  school  naturalists,  equally  at  home  in  all 
of  the  sciences  His  paper  on  Trilobites  (1832)  was  our  first 
formal  contribution  to  invertebrate  paleontology  ;  his  "-Account  of 
some  new  species  of  Salamanders, "§  one  of  the  earliest  steps  in 
American  herpetology  ;  his  "  Remarks  on  the  Unios  of  the  United 
States, "||  the  beginning  of  studies  subsequently  extensively  prose- 
cuted by  Lea  and  some  other  entomologists.  He  also  wrote  upon 
the  crystallization  of  snow,  and  was  the  author  of  "  Chemical 

*  London's  Gardeners'  Magazine. 

t  A.  H.  Stephens  in  Johnson's  Cyclopcedia,  p.  1702. 

\  The  LeConte  family  deserves  a  place  in  Galto's  "Hereditary  Ge- 
nius." Prof.  John  LeConte,  the  physicist,  and  Prof.  Joseph  LeConte, 
the  geologist,  were  sons  of  Dr.  Lewis  LeConte ;  while  Dr.  J.  L.  LeConte 
is  the  son  of  his  brother,  Major  LeConte. 

§  Contributions  of  the  Maclurian  Lyceum,  i,  Jan.,  1827,  p.  3. 

11  Ibid,  i,  ii,  41. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  63 

Philosophy,"    ''Astronomical  Researches,"    and    a   work    upon 
Botany  of  the  United  States. 

The  earlier  volumes  of  Silliman's  Journal  were  filled  with  notes 
of  his  observations  in  all  departments  of  natural  history. 

Jose  Francisco  Correa  da  Serra,  secretary  of  the  Royal 
Academy  of  Lisbon,  was  resident  in  Philadelphia  in  1813,  in  the 
capacity  of  Portuguese  minister,  and  affiliated  with  our  men  of 
science  in  botanical  and  geological  interests.  In  1814  he  lectured 
on  botany  in  the  place  of  B.  S.  Barton,  and  also  published  sev- 
eral botanical  papers,  as  well  as  one  upon  the  soil  of  Kentucky. 

Alire  RafFenau  Delile,  formerly  a  member  of  Napoleon's 
scientific  expedition  to  Egypt,  and  the  editor  of  the  "  Flora  of 
Egypt,"  was  in  New  York  about  this  time,  for  the  purpose  of 
completing  his  medical  education,  and  seems  to  have  done  much 
to  stimulate  interest  in  botanical  studies. 

To  this  as  well  as  to  the  subsequent  period  belonged  Dr. 
Gerard  Troost  [b.  in  Holland,  Mar.  15,  1776,  ed.  at  Ley  den,  d. 
at  Nashville,  Aug.  17,  1850],  a  naturalist  of  Dutch  birth  and  edu- 
cation, who  came  to  Philadelphia  in  1810,  and  was  a  founder 
and  the  first  President  of  the  Philadelphia  Academy.  In  1826 
he  founded  a  Geological  Survey  of  the  environs  of  Philadelphia  ; 
in  1827  became  Professor  of  Chemistry,  Mineralogy  and  Ge- 
ology in  the  University  of  Nashville.  As  State  geologist  of 
Tennessee  from  1831-49  he  published  some  of  the  earliest  State 
geological  reports. 

Another  expedition,  well  worthy  of  mention,  though  not  ex- 
ceedingly fruitful,  was  one  made  under  the  direction  of  Mr. 
Maclure,  President  of  the  Philadelphia  Academy,  to  the  Sea 
Islands  of  Georgia  and  the  Florida  peninsula.  The  party  con- 
sisted of  Maclure,  Say,  Ord,  and  Titian  R.  Peale,  and  its  re- 
sults, though  not  embodied  in  a  formal  report,  may  be  detected 
in  the  scientific  literature  of  the  succeeding  years.  This  was 
early  in  1818,  while  Florida  was  still  under  the  dominion  of 


64  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

Spain,  and  the  expedition  was  finally  abandoned,  owing  to  the 
hostile  attitude  of  the  Seminole  Indians  in  that  territory. 

XIV. 

The  third  decade  of  the  century,  beginning  with  1820,  was 
marked  by  a  continuation  of  the  activities  of  that  which  pre- 
ceedcd.  In  1826  there  were  in  existence  twenty-five  scientific 
societies,  more  than  half  of  them  especially  devoted  to  natural 
history,*  and  nearly  all  of  very  recent  origin. 

The  leading  spirits  were  Mitchill,  Maclure,  Webster,  Torrey, 
Silliman,  Gibbs,  LeConte,.  Dewey,  Hare,  Hitchcock,  Olmstead, 
Eliot,  and  T.  R.  Beck. 

Nathaniel  Bowditch  [b.  1773,  d.  1838],  who,  in  1829,  began 
the  publication  of  his  magnificent  translation  of  the  "Mecanique 
Celeste"  of  La  Place,  with  those  scholarly  commentations  which 
secured  him  so  lofty  a  place  among  the  mathematicians  of  the 
world. 

Still  more  important  was  the  lesson  of  his  noble  devotion  of 
his  life  and  fortune  to  science.  The  greater  part  of  his  monu- 
mental work  was  completed,  we  are  told,  in  1817,  but  he  found 
that  to  print  it  would  cost  $12,000,  a  sum  far  beyond  his  means. 
A  few  years  later,  however,  he  began  its  publication  from  his 
own  limited  means,  and  the  work  was  continued,  after  his  death, 
by  his  wife.  The  dedication  is  to  his  wife,  and  tells  us  that 
u  without  her  approbation  the  work  would  not  have  been  under- 
taken." 

Another  person  was  W..  C.  Redfield  [b.  1789,  d.  1857],  who, 
in  1827,  promulgated  the  essential  portions  of  the  theory  of 
storms,  which  is  now  pretty  generally  accepted,  and  which  was 
subsequently  extended  by  Sir  William  Reid  in  Barbadoes  and 
Bermuda,  and  greatly  modified  by  Professor  Loomis,  of  New 
Haven.  An  eloquent  eulogy  of  Redfield  was  pronounced  by 

*  Amer.  Journ.  Sci.,  x,  p.  368.    (Cut). 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  65 

Professor  Denison  Olmsted  at  the  Montreal  meeting  of  the  Ameri- 
can Association  in  1857.* 

Among  the  rising  young  investigators  appear  the  names  of 
Joseph  Henry,  A.  D.  Bache,  C.  U.  Shepard,  the  younger  Silli- 
man,  Henry  Seybert,  William  Mather,  Ebenezer  Emmons, 
Percival,  the  poet  geologist,  DeKay,  Godman,  and  Harlan. 

The  organization,  in  1824,  of  the  Rensselaer  School,  after- 
wards the  Rensselaer  Polytechnic  Institute,  at  Troy,  marked  the 
beginning  of  a  new  era  in  scientific  and  technological  education. 
Its  principal  professors  were  Amos  Eaton  and  Dr.  Lewis  C. 
Beck. 

In  1820  an  expedition  was  sent  by  the  General  Government 
to  explore  the  Northwestern  Territory,  especially  the  region 
around  the  Great  Lakes  and  the  sources  of  the  Mississippi.  This 
was  under  charge  of  Gen.  Lewis  Cass,  at  that  time  Governor  of 
Michigan  Territory.  Henry  R.  Schoolcraft  accompanied  this 
expedition  as  mineralogist,  and  Capt.  D.  B.  Douglass,  U.  S.  A., 
as  topographical  engineer  ;  and  both  of  these  sent  home  consider- 
able collections  reported  upon  by  the  specialists  of  the  day.  Cass 
himself,  though  better  known  as  a  statesman,  was  a  man  of  scien- 
tific tastes  and  ability,  and  his  "  Inquiries  respecting  the  History, 
Traditions,  Languages,  &c.,  of  the  Indians,"  published  at  Detroit 
in  1823,  is  a  work  of  high  merit. 

Long's  expeditions  into  the  far  West  were  also  in  progress  at 
this  time,  under  the  direction  of  the  General  Government ;  the 
first,  or  Rocky  Mountain,  exploration  in  1819-20;  the  second  to 
the  sources  of  the  St.  Peter's,  in  1823.  In  the  first  expedition 
Major  Long  was  accompanied  by  Edwin  James  as  botanist  and 
geologist,  who  also  wrote  the  Narrative  published  in  1823.  The 
second  expedition  was  accompanied  by  William  H.  Keating, 
Professor  of  Mineralogy  and  Chemistry  in  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania,  who  was  its  geologist  and  historiographer.  Say 

*  See  History  of  N.  Y.  Academy  of  Science,  p.  76. 


66  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY   OF   WASHINGTON. 

was  the  zoologist  of  both  explorations.     De  Schweinitz  worked 
up  the  botanical  material  which  he  collected. 

The  English  expeditions  sent  to  Arctic  North  America  under 
the  command  of  Sir  John  Franklin  were  also  out  during  these 
years,  the  first  from  1819  to  1822,  the  second  from  1825  to  1827, 
and  yielded  many  important  results.  To  naturalists  they  have 
an  especial  interest,  because  Sir  John  Richardson,  who  accom- 
panied Franklin  as  surgeon  and  naturalist,  was  one  of  the  most 
eminent  and  successful  zoological  explorers  of  the  century,  and 
had  more  to  do  with  the  development  of  our  natural  history  than 
any  other  man  not  an  American. 

His  natural  history  papers  in  Franklin's  reports,  1823  and 
1828,  his  k'  Fauna  Boreali  Americana,"  published  between  1827 
and  1836,  his  report  upon  the  "Zoology  of  North  America,"  are 
all  among  the  classics  of  our  zoological  literature.* 

The  third  decade  was  somewhat  marked  by  a  renewal  of  in- 
terest in  zoology  and  botany,  which  had,  during  the  few  preced- 
ing years,  been  rather  overshadowed  by  geology  and  mineralogy. 

Rafinesque  had  retired  to  Kentucky,  where,  from  his  profes- 
sor's chair  in  Transylvania  University,  he  was  issuing  his  An- 
nals of  Nature  and  his  Wester??.  Minerva;  and  his  brilliancy 
being  dimmed  by  distance,  other  students  of  animals  had  a 
chance  to  work. 

One  of  the  most  noteworthy  of  the  workers  was  Thomas  Say 
[b.  17875  d-  T§34]?  who  was  a  pioneer  in  several  departments  of 
systematic  zoology.  A  kinsman  of  the  Bartrams,  he  spent  many 
of  his  boyhood  days  in  the  old  botanic  garden  at  Kingsessing, 
in  company  with  the  old  naturalist,  William  Bartram,  and  the 
ornithologist  Wilson.  At  the  age  of  twenty-five,  having  been 
unsuccessful  as  an  apothecary,  he  gave  his  whole  time  to 
zoology.  He  slept  in  the  hall  of  the  Academv  of  Natural 


*  See  REV.  JOHN  MC!LWRAITH'S  Life  of  Sir  John  Richardson,  C.  B., 
LL.  D.     London,  1868.       Also  Obituary  in  London  Reader,  1865,  p.  707. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  67 

Sciences,  where  he  made  his  bed  beneath  the  skeleton  of  a 
horse,  and  fed  himself  upon  bread  and  milk.  He  was  wont,  we 
are  told,  to  regard  eating  as  an  inconvenient  interruption  to  sci- 
entific pursuits,  and  to  wish  that  he  had  been  created  with  a  hole 
in  his  side,  through  which  his  food  might  be  introduced  into  his 
system.  He  built  up  the  museum  of  the  society,  and  made 
extensive  contributions  to  biological  science. 

His  article  on  conchology,  published  in  1816  in  the  American 
edition  of  Nicholson's  Cyclopaedia,  was  the  foundation  of  that 

*» 

science  in  this  country,  and  was  republished  in  Philadelphia  in 
1819,  with  the  title,  ''A  Description  of  the  Land  and  Fresh- 
water Shells  of  the  United  States." 

"  This  work."  remarked  a  contemporary,  "  ought  to  be  in  the 
possession  of  every  American  lover  of  Natural  Science.  It  has 
been  quoted  by  M.  Lamarck  and  adopted  by  J/.  de  Ferrusac, 
and  has  thus  taken  its  place  in  the  scientific  world." 

Such  was  fame  in  America  in  the  year  of  grace  1820. 

In  1817  he  did  a  similar  service  for  systematic  entomology, 
and  his  contributions  to  herpetology,  to  the  study  of  marine 
invertebrates,  especially  the  Crustacea,  and  to  that  of  invertebrate 
paleontology,  were  equally  fundamental. 

As  naturalist  of  Long's  expeditions  he  described  many  Western 
vertebrates,  and  also  collected  Indian  vocabularies,  and  it  is 
said  that  the  narrative  of  the  expeditions  was  chiefly  based  upon 
the  contents  of  his  note-books. 

In  1825  he  removed  from  Philadelphia  to  New  Harmony.  In- 
diana, and,  in  company  with  Maclure  and  Troost,  became  a 
member  of  the  community  founded  there  by  Owen  of  Lanark. 
Comparatively  little  was  thenceforth  done  by  him,  and  we  can 
only  regret  the  untimely  close  of  so  brilliant  a  career.* 

*  See  Memoirs  by  B.  H.  Coates,  read  before  American  Philosophical 
Society,  Dec.  16,  1834.  Memoirs  by  George  Ord;  also  a  tribute  to  his 
memory  in  Ball's  presidential  address  before  the  Society  in  January,  1888 


68  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

Charles  Alexander  Lesueur  [b.  at  Havre-de-Grace,  France, 
Jan.  i,  1778,  d.  at  Havre,  Dec.  12,  1846],  the  friend  and  associate 
of  Maclure  and  Say,  accompanied  them  to  New  Harmony.  The 
romantic  life  of  this  talented  Frenchman  has  been  well  narrated 
in  his  biography  by  Ord.*  He  was  one  of  the  staff'  of  the  Bau- 
din  expedition  to  Australia  in  1800,  and  to  his  efforts,  seconding 
those  of  Peron,  his  associate,  were  due  most  of  the  scientific 
results  which  France  obtained  from  that  ill-fated  enterprise. 
Lesueur,  though  a  naturalist  of  considerable  ability,  was,  above 
all,  an  artist.  The  magnificent  plates  in  the  reports  prepared  by 
Peron  f  and  Freycinet  J  were  all  his.  He  was  called  "the 
Raffaelle  of  zoological  painters,"  and  his  removal  to  America  in 
1815  was  greatly  deplored  by  European  naturalists.  He  travelled 
for  three  years  with  Maclure,  exploring  the  West  Indies  and  the 
eastern  United  States,  making  a  magnificent  collection  of  draw- 
ings of  fishes  and  invertebrates,  and  in  1818  settled  in  Philadel- 
phia, where,  supporting  himself  by  giving  drawing  lessons,  he 
became  an  active  member  of  the  Academy  of  Sciences,  and 
published  manv  papers  in  its  Journal. 

No  one  ever  drew  such  exquisite  figures  of  fishes  as  Lesueur, 
and  it  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  he  never  completed  his  pro- 
jected work  upon  North  American  Ichthyology.  He  issued  a 
prospectus,  with  specimen  plates,  of  a  "Memoir  on  the  Medusas," 
and  his  name  will  always  be  associated  with  the  earliest  American 
work  upon  marine  invertebrates  and  invertebrate  paleontology, 
because  it  was  to  him  that  Say  undoubtedly  owed  his  first  ac- 
quaintance with  these  departments  of  zoology.  In  1820,  while 
at  Albany  in  the  service  of  the  United  States  and  Canadian 
Boundary  Commission,  he  gave  lessons  to  Eaton  and  identified 
his  fossils,  thus  laying  the  foundations  for  the  future  work  of 
the  rising  school  of  New  'York  paleontologists. 


*  ORD  :  Memoir  of  Charles  Alexander  Lesueur.    Am.  Jour.  Set'.,  2d  ser., 
viii,  p.  189. 

t  Voyage  des  Decouvertes  aux  Terres  Australes. 
J  Voyage  aux  Terres  Australes. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  69 

Twelve  years  of  his  life  were  wasted  at  New  Harmony,  and 
in  1837,  after  the  death  of  Say,  he  returned  to  France,  oarrying 
his  collections  and  drawings  to  the  Natural  History  Museum  at 
Havre,  of  which  he  became  Curator.  His  period  of  productive- 
ness was  limited  to  the  six  years  of  his  residence  in  Philadelphia. 
But  for  their  sacrifice  to  the  socialistic  ideas  of  Owen,  Say  and 
Lesueur  would  doubtless  be  counted  among  the  most  distin- 
guished of  our  naturalists,  and  the  course  of  American  zoolog- 
ical research  would  have  been  entirely  different. 

The  Rev.  Daniel  H.  Barnes  [b.  1785-,  d.  1828],  of  New  York, 
a  graduate  of  Union  College  and  a  Baptist  preacher,  was  one  of 
Say's  earliest  disciples,  and  from  1823  he  published  papers  on 
conchology,  beginning  with  an  elaborate  study  of  the  fresh-water 
mussels.  This  group  was  taken  up  in  1827  by  Dr.  Isaac  Lea, 
and  discussed  from  year  to  year  in  his  well-known  series  of 
beautifully  illustrated  monographs. 

Mr.  Barnes  published,  also,  papers  on  the  "  Classification  of  the 
Chitonidae,''  on  4>  Batrachian  Animals  and  Doubtful  Reptiles," 
and  on  "  Magnetic  Polarity." 

The  officers  of  the  Navy  had  already  begun  their  contributions 
to  natural  history  which  have  been  so  serviceable  in  later  years. 
One  of  the  earliest  contributions  by  Barnes  was  a  description  of 
five  species  of  Chiton  collected  in  Peru  by  Capt.  C.  S.  Ridgely, 
of  the  "  Constellation." 

In  this  period  (18284-)  was  begun  the  publication  of  Audu- 
bon's  folio  volumes  of  illustrations  of  North  American  birds — 
a  most  extraordinary  work,  of  which  Cuvier  enthusiastically  ex- 
claimed :  ik  C'est  le  plus  magnifique  monument  que  1'Art  ait  en- 
core eleve  a  la  Nature." 

Wilson  was  the  Wordsworth  of  American  naturalists,  but  Au- 
dubon  was  their  Rubens.  With  pen  as  well  as  with  brush  he 
delineated  those  wonderful  pictures  which  have  been  the  delight 
of  the  world. 


70  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

Born  in  1781,  in  Louisiana,  while  it  was  still  a  Spanish  colony, 
he  became,  at  an  early  age,  a  pupil  of  the  famous  French  painter 
David,  under  whose  tuition  he  acquired  the  rudiments 
of  his  art.  Returning  to  America,  he  began  the  career  of  an  ex- 
plorer, and  for  over  half  a  century  his  life  was  spent,  for  the 
most  part,  in  the  forests  or  in  the  preparation  of  his  ornitholog- 
ical publications — occasionally  visiting  England  and  France, 
where  he  had  many  admirers.  His  devotion  to  his  work  was  as 
complete  and  self-sacrificing  as  that  of  Bowditch,  the  story  of 
whose  translation  of  LaPlace  has  already  been  referred  to.  It 
was  a  great  surprise  to  his  friends  (though  his  own  fervor  did 
not  permit  him  to  doubt)  that  the  sale  of  his  folio  volumes  was 
sufficient  to  pay  his  printer's  bills.  Audubon  was  not  a  very 
accomplished  systematic  zoologist,  and  when  serious  discrimi- 
nations of  species  was  necessary,  sometimes  formed  alliances 
with  others.  Thus  Bachman  became  his  collaborator  in  the 
study  of  mammals,  and  the  youthful  Baird  was  invited  by  him, 
shortly  before  his  death  in  1851,  to  join  him  in  an  ornithological 
partnership.  His  relations  with  Alexander  Wilson  form  the 
subject  of  a  most  entertaining  narration  in  the  "  Ornithological 
Biography."* 

Thomas  Nuttall  [b.  in  Yorkshire,  1786,  d.-at  St.  Helens,  Lanca- 
shire, Sept.  10,  1859]  was  so  thoroughly  identified  with  Ameri- 
can natural  history  and  so  entirely  unconnected  with  that  of 
England  that,  although  he  returned  to  his  native  land  to  die,  we 
may  fairly  claim  him  as  one  of  our  own  worthies.  He  crossed 
the  ocean  when  about  twenty-one  years  of  age,  and  travelled  in 
every  part  of  the  United  States  and  in  the  Sandwich  Islands 
studying  birds  and  plants.  From  1822  to  1828  he  was  curator 
and  lecturer  at  the  Harvard  Botanical  Garden.  Besides  numer- 
ous papers  in  the  Proceedings  of  the  Philadelphia  Academy, 
he  published  in  Philadelphia,  in  1818,  his  "  Genera  of  North 

*  i,  P.  439- 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  71 

American  Plants,"  in  his  "  Geological  Sketch  of  the  Valley  of 
the  Mississippi,"  in  1821  ;  his  "  Journal  of  Travels  into  the  Ar- 
kansas Territory,"  a  work  abounding  in  natural  history  obser- 
vations ;  in  1832-4  his  "  Manual  of  the  Ornithology  of  the  United 
States  and  Canada  ;"  and  in  1843-9  ms  "  North  American  Sylva," 
a  continuation  of  the  Sylva  of  Michaux.  About  1850  he  retired 
to  a  rural  estate  in  England,  where  he  died  in  1859. 

Nuttall  was  not  great  as  a  botanist,  as  a  geologist,  or  a  zoolo- 
gist, but  was  a  man  useful,  beloved,  and  respected. 

Richard  Harlan,  M.  D.  [b.  1796,  d.  1843],  who,  with  Mitchill, 
Say,  Rafinesque,  and  Gosse,  was  one  of  the  earliest  of  our  herpetolo- 
gists.  and  who  was  one  of  Audubon's  chief  friends  and  supporters, 
published  in  1825  the  first  instalment  of  his  "  Fauna  Americana," 
which  treated  exclusively  of  mammals.  This  was  followed,  in 
1826,  by  a  rival  work  on  mammals,  by  Godman.  Harlan's  book 
was  a  compilation,  based  largely  on  translations  of  portions  of 
Desmarest's  "  Mammalogie,"  printed  three  years  before  in  Paris. 
It  was  so  severely  criticised  that  the  second  portion,  which  was 
to  have  been  devoted  to  reptiles,  was  never  published,  and  its 
author  turned  his  attention  to  medical  literature.  Godman's 
"  North  American  Natural  History,  or  Mastology,"  contained 
much  original  matter,  and,  though  his  contemporaries  received  it 
with  faint  praise,  it  is  the  only  separate,  compact,  illustrated 
treatise  on  the  mammals  of  North  America  ever  published,  and  is 
useful  to  the  present  day.  John  D.  Godman  [b.  in  Annapolis, 
Md.,  Dec.  20,  1794,  d.  in  Germantown,  Pa.,  Apl.  17,  1830]  died 
an  untimely  death,  but  gave  promise  of  a  brilliant  and  useful 
career  as  a  teacher  and  investigator.  His  "'  Rambles  of  a  Nat- 
uralist "  is  one  of  the  best  series  of  essays  of  the  Selborne  type 
ever  produced  by  an  American,  and  his  "American  Natural  His- 
tory "  is  a  work  of  much  importance,  even  to  the  present  day, 
embodying  as  it  does  a  large  number  of  original  observations. 

Michaux's  Sylva  was,  as  we  have  seen,  continued  by  Nuttall : 


72  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

Wilson's  American  Ornithology  was,  in  like  manner,  continued 
by  Charles  Lucien  Bonaparte  [b.  in  Paris,  May  24,  1803,  d. 
in  Paris,  July  30,  1857],  Prince  of  Canino,  and  nephew  of 
Napoleon  the  First,  a  master  in  systematic  zoology.  Bonaparte 
came  to  the  United  States  about  the  year  1822,  and  returned  to 
Italy  in  1828.  His  contributions  to  zoological  science  were  of 
great  importance.  In  1827,  he  published  in  Pisa  his  "  Specchio 
comparative  delle  ornithologie  di  Roma  e  di  Filadelfia,"  and 
from  1825  to  1833  his  "American  Ornithology,"  containing  de- 
scriptions of  over  one  hundred  species  of  birds  discovered  by 
himself. 

The  publication  of  Torrey's  "  Flora  of  the  Middle  and  North- 
ern Sections  of  the  United  States  "  was  an  event  of  importance, 
as  was  also  Dr.  W.  J.  Hooker's  essay  on  the  Botany  of 
America,*  the  first  general  treatise  upon  the  American  flora  or 
fauna,  by  a  master  abroad,  is  pretty  sure  evidence  that  the  work 
of  home  naturalists  was  beginning  to  tell. 

So,  also,  in  a  different  way,  was  the  .appearance  in  1829  of 
the  first  edition  of  Mrs.  Lincoln's  "  Familiar  Lectures  on  Bot- 
any," a  work  which  did  much  toward  swelling  the  army  of 
amateur  botanists. 

Important  work  was  also  in  progress  in  geology.  Eaton  and 
Beck  were  carrying  on  the  Van  Rensselaer  survey  of  New  York, 
and  in  1818  the  former  published  his  "  Index  to  the  Geology  of 
the  Northern  States."  Prof.  Denison  Olmstead,  of  the  Univer- 
sity of  North  Carolina,  was  completing  the  official  survey  of 
that  State — the  first  ever  authorized  by  the  government  of  a  State. 

Prof.  Lardner  Vanuxem,  of  North  Carolina,  in  1828,  made  an 
important  advance,  being  the  first  to  avail  himself  successfully  of 
paleontology  for  the  determination  of  the  age  of  several  of  our 
formations,  and  their  approximate  synchronism  with  European 
beds.f 

*  Brewster's  Edinburgh  Journal  of  Science,  iii,  p.  103. 
t  Gill. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  73 

Horace  H.  Hayden,  of  Baltimore  [b.  1769?  d.  1844],  pub- 
lished in  1820  "  Geological  Essays,  or  an  inquiry  into  some  of 
the  geological  phenomena  to  be  found  in  various  parts  of  America 
and  elsewhere,"*  which  was  well  received  as  a  contribution  to 
the  history  of  alluvial  formations  of  the  globe,  and  was  apparently 
the  first  general  work  on  geology  published  in  this  country. 
Silliinan  said  that  it  should  be  a  text-book  in  all  the  schools. 
He  published,  also,  a  "  New  Method  of  preserving  Ana- 
tomical Preparations,"!  "  A  Singular  ore  of  Cobalt  and  Manga- 
nese,"! on  "The  Bare  Hills  near  Baltimore,")]  and  on  "Silk 
Cocoons, "§  and  was  a  founder  and  vice-president  of  the  Maryland 
Academy  of  Sciences. 

XV. 

In  the  fourth  decade  (1830-40)  the  leading  spirits  were  Silli- 
inan, Hare,  Olmstead,  Hitchcock,  Torrey,  DeKay,  Henry,  and 
Morse. 

Among  the  men  just  coming  into  prominence  were  J.  W. 
Draper,  then  professor  in  Hampden  Sidney  College,  in  Virginia, 
the  brothers  W.  B.  and  H.  D.  Rogers,  A.  A.  Gould  the 
conchologist,  and  James  D.  Dana. 

Henry  was  just  making  his  first  discoveries  in  physics,  having, 
in  1829,  pointed  out  the  possibility  of  electro-magnetism  as  a 
motive  power,  and  in  1831  set  up  his  first  telegraphic  circuit  at 
Albany.  In  1832  the  United  States  Coast  Survey,  discontinued 
in  i Si 8,  was  reorganized  under  the  direction  of  its  first  chief, 
Hassler,  now  advanced  in  years.^f 

The  natural  history  survey  of  New  York  was  organized  by  the 

*  Rev.  Sill.  Journ.,  iii,  47.     Blackwood's  Mag.,  xvi,  420;  xvii,  56. 

t  American  Medical  Record,  1822. 

|  Ibid.  1832.       ||  Silliman's  Journal,  1822. 

§  Journ.  Amer.  Silk  Company,  1839. 

^Proc.  Amer.  Assoc.  Adv.  Sei.,  H,  163. 


74  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

State  in   1836,   and  James    Hall   and   Ebenezer  Emmons  were 
placed  upon  its  staff. 

G.  W.  Featherstonhaugh  [b.  1780,  d.  1866]  was  conducting 
(1834-5)  a  Government  expedition,  exploring  the  geology  of 
the  elevated  country  between  the  Missouri  and  Red  rivers  and 
the  Wisconsin  territories.  He  bore  the  name  of"  United  States 
Geologist,"  and  projected  a  geological  map  of  the  United  States, 
which  now,  half  a  century  later,  is  being  completed  by  the  U.  S. 
geologist  of  to-day.  Besides  his  report  upon  the  survey  just 
referred  to,  Featherstonhaugh  printed  a  "  Geological  Reconnois- 
sance,  in  1835,  from  Green-  Bay  to  Coteau  des  Prairies,"  and  a 
"  Canoe  Voyage  up  the  Minnay  Sotor,"  in  London,  1847. 

In  1838  the  United  States  Exploring  Expedition  under  Wilkes 
was  sent  upon  its  voyage  of  circumnavigation,  having  upon  its  staff 
a  young  naturalist  named  Dana,  whose  studies  upon  the  crusta- 
ceans and  radiates  of  the  expedition  have  made  him  a  world-wide 
reputation,  entirely  independent  of  that  which  he  has  since  gained 
as  a  mineralogist  and  geologist.  It  is  customary  to  refer  to  the 
Wilkes  expedition  as  having  been  sent  out  entirely  in  the  inter- 
ests of  science.  As  a  matter  of  fact  it  was  organized  primarily 
in  the  interests  of  the  whale  fishery  of  the  United  States. 

Dana,  before  his  departure  with  Wilkes,  had  published,  in 
1837,  tne  first  edition  of  his  "  System  of  Mineralogy,"  a  work 
whjch,  in  its  subsequent  editions,  has  become  the  standard  man- 
ual of  the  world. 

The  publication  of  Ly ell's  "  Principles  of  Geology  "  at  the  be- 
ginning of  this  decade  (1830)  had  given  new  direction  to  the 
thoughts  of  our  geologists,  and  they  were  all  hard  at  work  under 
its  inspiration. 

With  1839  ended  the  second  of  our  thirty-year  periods — the 
.one  which  I  have  chosen  to  speak  of  as  the  period  of  Silliman — 
not  so  much  because  of  the  investigations  of  the  New  Haven 
pnofessor,  as  on  account  of  his  influence  in  the  promotion  of 
American  Science  and  scientific  institutions. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  75 

This  was  a  time  of  hard  work,  and  we  must  not  withhold  our 
praise  from  the  noble  little  company  of  pioneers  who  were,  in  those 
years,  building  the  foundations  upon  which  the  scientific  institu- 
tions of  to-day  are  resting. 

The  difficulties  and  drawbacks  of  scientific  research  at  this  time 
have  been  well  described  by  one  who  knew  them  :* 

"  The  professedly  scientific  institutions  of  our  country  issued, 
from  time  to  time,  though  at  considerable  intervals,  volumes  of 
transactions  and  proceedings  unquestionably  not  without  their 
influence  in  keeping  alive  the  scarcely  kindled  flame,  but  whose 
contents,  as  might  be  expected,  were,  for  the  most  part,  rather  in 
conformity  with  the  then  existing  standard  of  excellence  than  in 
advance  of  it.  Natural  history  in  the  United  States  was  the  mere 
sorting  of  genera  and  species.  The  highest  requisite  for  distinc- 
tion in  any  physical  science  was  the  knowledge  of  what  European 
students  had  attained.  Astronomy  was,  in  general,  confined  to 
observations,  and  those  not  of  the  most  refined  character,  and  its 
merely  descriptive  departments  were  estimated  far  more  highly 
than  the  study  of  its  laws.  Astronomical  computation  had  hardly 
risen  above  the  ciphering  out  of  eclipses  and  occultations.  Indeed, 
I  risk  nothing  in  saying  that  astronomy  had  lost  ground  in  Amer- 
ica since  those  colonial  times,  when  men  like  Rittenhouse  kept 
up  a  constant  scientific  communication  with  students  of  astronomy 
beyond  the  seas.  And  I  believe  I  may  farther  say,  that  a  single 
instance  of  a  man's  devoting  himself  to  science  as  the  only  earthly 
guide,  aim,  and  object  of  his  life,  while  unassured  of  a  professor's 
chair  or  some  analogous  appointment  upon  which  he  might  de- 
pend for  subsistence,  was  utterly* unknown. 

"  Such  was  the  state  of  science  in  general.  In  astronomy  the 
expensive  appliances  requisite  for  all  observations  of  the  higher 
class  were  wanting,  and  there  was  not  in  the  United  States,  with 
the  exception  of  the  Hudson  Observatory,  to  which  Professor 
Loomis  devoted  such  hours  as  he  could  spare  from  his  duties  in 
the  college,  a  single  establishment  provided  with  the  means  of  mak- 
ing an  absolute  determination  of  the  place  of  any  celestial  body,  or 
even  relative  determinations  at  all  commensurate  in  accuracy  writh 
the  demands  of  the  times.  The  only  instrument  that  could  be 
thought  of  for  the  purpose  was  the  Yale  College  telescope,  which, 
although  provided  with  a  micrometer,  was  destitute  of  the  means 
of  identifying  comparison-stars.  A  better  idea  of  American  as- 
tronomy a  dozen  years  ago  can  hardly  be  obtained  than  by  quot- 

*  GOULD,  B.  A.  Address    in    commemoration  of  Sears  Cook  WalkeV 
<Proc.  Amer.  Assoc.  Ad.  Set.,  viii,  25 


76  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

ing  from  an  article  published  at  that  time  by  the  eminent  geometer 
who  now  retires  from  the  position  of  President  of  this  Association. 
He  will  forgive  me  the  liberty  for  the  sake  of  the  illustration. 
*  The  impossibility,'  said  he,  '  of  great  national  progress  in  as- 
tronomy, while  the  materials  are,  for  the  most  part,  imported,  can 
hardly  need  to  be  impressed  upon  the  patrons  of  science  in  this 
country.  *  *  *  And  next  to  the  support  of  observers  is  the 
establishment  of  observatories.  Something  has  been  done  for  this 
purpose  in  various  parts  of  the  country,  and  it  is  earnestly  to  be 
hoped  that  the  intimations  which  we  have  heard  regarding  the  in- 
tentions of  Government  may  prove  to  be  well  founded  ;  that  we 
shall  soon  have  a  permanent  national  observatory  equal  in  its  ap- 
pointments to  the  best  furnished  ones  of  Europe  ;  and  that  Ameri- 
can ships  will  ere  long  calculate  their  longitudes  and  latitudes  from 
an  American  nautical  almanac.  That  there  is  on  this  side  of  the 
Atlantic  a  sufficient  capacity  for  celestial  observations  is  amply 
attested  by  the  success  which  has  attended  the  efforts,  necessarily 
humble  which  have  hitherto  been  made.'"* 


XVI. 

Just  before  the  middle  of  the  century  a  wave,  or  to  speak  more 
accurately,  a  series  of  waves  of  intellectual  activity  began  to  pass 
over  Europe  and  America.  There  was  a  renaissance,  quite  as 
important  as  that  which  occurred  in  Europe  at  the  close  of  the 
Middle  Ages.  Draper  and  other  historians  have  pointed  out  the 
causes  of  this  movement,  prominent  among  which  were  the  in- 
troduction of  steam  and  electricity,  annihilating  space  and 
relieving  mankind  from  a  great  burden  of  mechanical  drudgery. 
It  was  the  beginning  of  the  "  age  of  science,"  and  political  as  well 
as  social  and  industrial  changes  followed  in  rapid  succession. 

In  Europe  the  great  work  began  a  little  earlier.  Professor 
Huxley,  in  his  address  to  the  Royal  Society  in  1885,  took  for  a 
fixed  point  his  own  birthday  in  1825,  which  was  four  months 
before  the  completion  of  the  railway  between  Stockton  and 
Darlington — "  the  ancestral  representative  of  the  vast  reticulated 
fetching  and  carrying  organism  which  now  extends  its  meshes 
over  the  civilized  world."  Since  then,  he  remarked,  "  the  greater 

*  PEIRCE,  BENJAMIN,  Cambridge  Miscellany,  1842,  p.  25. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  77 

part  of  the  vast  body  of  knowledge  which  constitutes  the  modenl 
sciences  of  physics,  chemistry,  biology,  and  geology  has  been 
acquired,  and  the  widest  generalizations  therefrom  have  been 
deduced,  and,  furthermore,  the  majority  of  those  applications  of 
scientific  knowledge  to  practical  ends  which  have  brought  about 
the  most  striking  differences  between  our  present  civilization  and 
that  of  antiquity  have  been  made  within  that  period  of  time." 

It  is  within  the  past  half  century,  he  continued,  that  the  most 
brilliant  additions  have  been  made  to  fact  and  theory  and  service- 
able hypothesis  in  the  region  of  pure  science,  for  within  this  time 
falls  the  establishment  on  a  safe  basis  of  the  greatest  of  all  the 
generalizations  of  science,  the  doctrines  of  the  Conservation  of 
Energy  and  of  Evolution.  Within  this  time  the  larger  moiety  of 
our  knowledge  of  light,  heat,  electricity,  and  magnetism  has  been 
acquired.  Our  present  chemistry  has  been,  in  great  part,  created, 
while  the  whole  science  has  been  remodelled  from  foundation  to 
roof. 

4'  It  may  be  natural,"  continued  Professor  Huxley,  "  that 
progress  should  appear  most  striking  to  me  among  those  sciences 
to  which  my  own  attention  has  been  directed,  but  I  do  not  think 
this  will  wholly  account  for  the  apparent  advance  '  by  leaps  and 
bounds'  of  the  biological  sciences  within  my  recollection.  The 
cell  theory  was  the  latest  novelty  when  I  began  to  work  with  the 
microscope,  and  I  have  watched  the  building  of  the  whole  vast 
fabric  of  histology.  I  can  say  almost  as  much  of  embryology, 
since  Von  Baer's  great  work  was  published  in  1828.  Our 
knowledge  of  the  morphology  of  the  lower  plants  and  animals 
and  a  great  deal  of  that  of  the  higher  forms  has  very  largely  been 
obtained  in  my  time ;  while  physiology  has  been  put  upon  a  to- 
tally new  foundation,  and,  as  it  were,  reconstructed,  by  the  thor- 
ough application  of  the  experimental  method  to  the  study  of  the 
phenomena  of  life,  and  by  the  accurate  determination  of  the 
purely  physical  and  chemical  components  of  these  phenomena. 


78  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

The  exact  nature  of  the  processes  of  sexual  and  non-sexual  repro- 
duction has  been  brought  to  light.  Our  knowledge  of  geograph- 
ical and  geological  distribution  and  of  the  extinct  forms  of  life 
has  been  increased  a  hundredfold.  As  for  the  progress  of  geo- 
logical science,  what  more  need  be  said  than  that  the  first  volume 
of  Ly ell's  '  Principles  '  bears  the  date  of  1830." 

It  cannot  be  expected  that,  within  the  limits  of  this  address,  I 
should  attempt  to  show  what  America  has  done  in  the  last  half 
century.  I  am  striving  to  trace  the  beginnings,  not  the  results,  of 
scientific  work  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic.  I  will  simply  quote 
what  was  said  by  the  London  Times  in  1876  : 

"  In  the  natural  distribution  of  subjects,  the  history  of  enter- 
prise, discovery,  and  conquest,  and  the  growth  of  republics,  fell 
to  America,  and  she  has  dealt  nobly  with  them.  In  the  wider 
and  more  multifarious  provinces  of  art  and  science  she  runs  neck 
and  neck  with  the  mother  country  and  is  never  left  behind." 

It  is  difficult  to  determine  exactly  the  year  when  the  first 
waves  of  this  renaissance  reached  the  shores  of  America.  Silli- 
man,  in  his  Priestley  address,  placed  the  date  at  184^.  I  should 
rather  say  1840,  when  the  first  national  scientific  association  was 
organized,  although  signs  of  awakening  maybe  detected  even  be- 
fore the  beginning  of  the  previous  decade.  We  must,  however, 
carefully  avoid  giving  too  much  prominence  to  the  influence  of 
individuals.  I  have  spoken  of  this  period  of  thirty  years  as  the 
period  of  Agassiz.  Agassiz,  however,  did  not  bring  the  waves 
with  him  ;  he  came  in  on  the  crest  of  one  of  them  ;  he  was  not 
the  founder  of  modern  American  natural  history,  but,  as  a  public 
teacher  and  organizer  of  institutions,  he  exerted  a  most  important 
influence  upon  its  growth. 

One  of  the  leading  events  of  the  decade  was  the  reorganization 
of  the  Coast  Survey  in  1844,  under  the  sage  administration  of 
Alexander  Dallas  Bache,*  speedily  followed  by  the  beginning  of 

*Proc.  Amer.  Assoc.  Adv.  Sci.,  ii,  164. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  79 

investigations  upon  the  Gulf  Stream,  and  of  the  researches  of 
Count  Pourtales  into  its  fauna,  which  laid  the  foundations  of  mod- 
ern deep-sea  exploration.  Others  were  the  founding  of  the 
Lawrence  Scientific  School,  the  Cincinnati  Observatory,  the 
Yale  Analytical  Laboratory,  the  celebration  of  the  Centennial 
Jubilee  of  the  American  Philosophical  Society  in  1843,  and  the 
enlargement  of  Silliman's  "  American  Journal  of  Science." 

The  Naval  Astronomical  Expedition  was  sent  to  Chili,  under 
Gibbon  (1849),  to  make  observations  upon  the  parallax  of  the 
sun.  Lieut.  Lynch  was  sent  to  Palestine  (in  1848)  at  the  head 
of  an  expedition  to  explore  the  Jordan  and  the  Dead  Sea. 

Fremont  conducted  expeditions,  in  1848,  to  explore  the 
Rocky  Mountains  and  the  territory  beyond,  and  Stansbury,  in1 
i849-'5o,  a  similar  exploration  of  the  valley  of  the  Great  Salt 
Lake.  David  Dale  Owen  was  heading  a  Government  Geological 
Survey  in  Wisconsin,  Iowa,  and  Minnesota  (1848),  and  from  all 
of  these  came  results  of  importance  to  science  and  to  natural 
history. 

In  1849,  Prof.  W.  H.  Harvey,  of  Dublin,  visited  America  and 
collected  materials  for  his  Nereis  B  or  eali- Americana,  which 
was  the  foundation  of  our  marine  botany. 

Sir  Charles  Lyell,  ex-President  of  the  Geological  Society 
of  London,  visited  the  United  States  in  1841  and  again  in  184^, 
and  published  two  volumes  of  travels,  which  were,  however,  of 
much  less  importance  than  the  effects  of  his  encouraging  presence 
upon  the  rising  school  of  American  geologists.  His  "  Principles 
of  Geology,"  as  has  already  been  said,  was  an  epoch-making 
work,  and  he  was  to  his  generation  almost  what  Darwin  was  to 
the  one  which  followed. 

Certain  successes  of  our  astronomers  and  physicists  had  a  bear- 
ing upon  the  progress  of  American  science  in  all  its  departments, 
which  was.,  perhaps,  even  greater  than  their  actual  importance 
would  seem  to  warrant.  These  were  the  discovery,  by  the  Bards 


80  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

of  Cambridge,  of  Bards  comet  in  1846,  of  the  satellite  Hyperion 
in  1848,  of  the  third  ring  of  Saturn  in  1850,  the  discovery  by 
Herrick  and  Bradley,  in  1846,  of  the  bi-partition  of  Belas  comet, 
and  the  application  of  the  telegraph  to  longitude  determination 
after  Locke  had  constructed,  in  1848,  his  clock  for  the  registra- 
tion of  time  observations  by  means  of  electro-magnetism. 

It  is  almost  ludicrous  at  this  day  to  observe  the  grateful  senti- 
ments with  which  our  men  of  science  welcomed  the  adoption  of 
this  American  method  in  the  observatory  at  Greenwich. 

Americans  were  still  writhing  under  the  sting  of  Sidney 
Smith's  demand  "Who  reads  an  American  book?"  and  the  nar- 
rations of  those  critical  observers  of  national  customs,  Dickens, 
Basil  Hall,  and  Mrs.  Trollope. 

The  continental  approval  of  American  science  was  like  balsam 
to  the  sensitive  spirits  of  our  countrymen. 

John  William  Draper's  versatile  and  original  researches  in 
physics  were  also  yielding  weighty  results,  and  as  early  as  1847 
he  had  already  laid  the  foundations  of  the  science  of  spectroscopy 
which  Kirchhoffso  boldly  appropriated  many  years  later. 

Most  important  of  all,  by  reason  of  its  breadth  of  scope,  was 
the  foundation  of  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  which  was  organ- 
ized in  1846  by  the  election  of  Joseph  Henry  to  its  secretaryship. 
Who  can  attempt  to  say  what  the  conditions  of  science  in  the 
United  States  would  be  to-day,  but  for  the  bequest  of  Smithson? 
In  the  words  of  John  Quincy  Adams,  "•  Of  all  the  foundations 
or  establishments  for  pious  or  charitable  uses  which  ever  signal- 
ized the  spirit  of  the  age  or  the  comprehensive  beneficence  of  the 
founder,  none  can  be  named  more  deserving  the  approbation  of 
mankind." 

Among  the  leaders  of  this  new  enterprise  and  of  the  scientific 
activities  of  the  day  may  be  named :  Silliman,  Hare,  Henry, 
Bache,  Maury,  Alexander,  Locke,  Mitchel,  Peirce,  Walker, 
Draper,  Dana,  Wyman,  Agassiz,  Gray,  Torrey,  Haldeman, 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  81 

Morton,  Holbrook,  Gibbes,  Gould,  DeKay,  Storer,  Hitchcock, 
Redfield,  the  brothers  Rogers,  Jackson,  Hays,  and  Owen. 

Among  the  rising  men  were  Baird,  Adams  the  conchologist, 
Burnett,  Harris  the  entomologist,  and  the  LeConte  brothers 
among  zoologists;  Lapham,  D.  C.  Eaton,  and  Grant,  among 
botanists;  Sterry  Hunt,  Brush,  J.  D.  Whitney,  Wolcott  Gibbs, 
and  Lesley,  among  chemists  and  geologists,  as  well  as  Schiel, 
of  St.  Louis,  who  had  before  1842  discovered  the  principle  of 
chemical  homology. 

I  have  not  time  to  say  what  ought  to  be  said  of  the  coming  of 
Agassiz  in  1846.  He  lives  in  the  hearts  of  his  adopted  country- 
men. He  has  a  colossal  monument  in  the  museum  which  he 
reared,  and  a  still  greater  one  in  the  lives  and  works  of  pupils 
such  as  Agassiz,  Allen,  Burgess,  Burnett,  Brooks,  Clarke,  Cooke, 
Faxon,  Fewkes,  Gorman,  Hartt,  Hyatt,  Joseph  LeConte,  Lyman, 
McCrady,  Morse,  Mills,  Niles,  Packard,  Putnam,  Scudder,  St. 
John,  Shaler,  Verrill,  Wilder,  and  David  A.  Wells. 

XVII. 

They  were  glorious  men  who  represented  American  science  at 
the  middle  of  the  century.  We  may  well  wonder  whether  the 
present  decade  will  make  as  good  a  showing  forty  years  hence. 

The  next  decade  was  its  continuation.  The  old  leaders  were 
nearly  all  active,  and  to  their  ranks  were  added  many  more. 

An  army  of  new  men  was  rising  up. 

It  was  a  period  of  great  explorations,  for  the  frontier  of  the 
United  States  was  sweeping  westward,  and  there  was  need  of  n 
better  knowledge  of  the  public  domain. 

Sitgreaves  explored  the  region  of  the  Zufii  and  Colorado  rivers 
in  1852,  and  Marcy  the  Red  River  of  the  North.  The  Mexican 
boundary  survey,  under  Emory,  was  in  progress  from  1854  *° 
1856,  and  at  the  same  time  the  various  Pacific  railroad  surveys. 
There  was  also  the  Herndon  exploration  of  the  valley  of  the  Am- 


82  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF   WASHINGTON. 

azon,  and  the  North  Pacific  exploring  expedition  under  Rogers. 
These  were  the  days,  too,  when  that  extensive  exploration  of 
British  North  America  was  begun,  through  the  co-operation  of 
the  Hudson's  Bay  Company  with  the  Smithsonian  Institution. 

It  was  the  harvest-time  of  the  museums.  Agassiz  was  building 
up  with  immense  rapidity  his  collections  in  Cambridge,  utilizing 
to  the  fullest  extent  the  methods  which  he  had  learned  in  the 
great  European  establishments  and  the  public  spirit  and  generosity 
of  the  Americans.  Baird  was  using  his  matchless  powers  of 
organization  in  equipping  and  inspiring  the  officers  of  the  various 
surveys,  and  accumulating  immense  collections  to  be  used  in  the 
interest  of  the  future  National  Museum. 

Systematic  natural  history  advanced  with  rapid  strides.  The 
magnificent  folio  reports  of  the  Wilkes  expedition  were  now 
being  published,  and  some  of  them,  particularly  those  by  Dana 
on  the  crustaceans  and  the  zoophytes  and  geology,  that  of  Gould 
upon  the  mollusks,  those  by  Torrey,  Gray,  and  Eaton  upon  the 
plants,  were  of  great  importance. 

The  reports  of  the  domestic  surveys  contained  numerous  papers 
upon  systematic  natural  history,  prepared  under  the  direction  of 
Baird,  assisted  by  Girard,  Gill,  Cassin,  Suckley,  LeConte,  Cooper, 
and  others.  The  volumes  relating  to  the  mammals  and  the  birds, 
prepared  by  Baird's  own  pen,  were  the  first  exhaustive  treatises 
upon  the  mammalogy  and  ornithology  of  the  United  States. 

The  American  Association  was  doing  a  great  work  in  popular 
education  through  its  system  of  meeting  each  year  in  a  different 
city.  In  1850  it  met  in  Charleston,  and  its  entire  expenses  were 
paid  by  the  city  corporation  as  a  valid  mark  of  public  approval, 
while  the  foundation  of  the  Charleston  museum  of  natural  his- 
tory was  one  of  the  direct  results  of  the  meeting. 

In  1857  it  met  *n  Montreal,  and  delegates  from  the  .English 
scientific  societies  were  present ;  this  was  one  of  the  earliest  of 
those  manifestations  of  international  courtesy  upon  scientific 
ground  of  which  there  have  since  been  many. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDEESS.  83 

In  the  seventh  decade,  which  began  with  threatenings  of  civil 
war,  the  growth  of  science  was  almost  arrested.  A  meeting  of 
the  American  Association  was  to  have  been  held  in  Nashville  in 
1861,  but  none  was  called.  In  1866,  at  Buffalo,  its  sessions  were 
resumed  with  the  old  board  of  officers  elected  in  1860.  One  of 
the  vice-presidents,  Gibbes,  of  South  Carolina,  had  not  been 
heard  from  since  the  war  began,  and  the  Southern  members 
were  all  absent.  Many  of  the  Northern  members  wrote,  explain- 
ing that  they  could  not  attend  this  meeting  because  they 
could  not  afford  it,  "  such  had  been  the  increase  of  liv- 
ing expenses,  without  a  corresponding  increase  in  the  salaries 
of  men  of  science."  Few  scientists  were  engaged  in  the  war, 
though  one,  O.  M.  Mitchel,  who  left  the  directorship  of  the 
Dudley  observatory  to  accept  the  command  of  an  Ohio  brigade, 
died  in  service  in  1862,  and  another,  Couthouy,  sacrificed  his 
life  in  the  navy.  Others,  like  Ordway,  left  the  ranks  of  science 
never  to  resume  their  places  as  investigators. 

Scientific  effort  was  paralyzed,  and  attention  was  directed  to 
other  matters.  In  1864,  when  the  Smithsonian  building  was 
burned,  Lincoln,  it  is  said,  looking  at  the  flames  from  the  win- 
dows of  the  Executive  Mansion,  remarked  to  some  military  offi- 
cers who  were  present:  "Gentlemen,  yonder  is  a  national 
calamity.  We  have  no  time  to  think  about  it  now.  We  must 
attend  to  other  things." 

The  only  important  events  during  the  war  were  two ;  one 
the  organization  of  the  National  Academy  of  Sciences,  which 
soon  became  what  Bache  had  remarked  the  necessity  for  in 
1851,  when  he  said:  "An  institution  of  science,  supplementary 
to  existing  ones,  is  much  needed  to  guide  public  action  in  refer- 
ence to  scientific  matters."* 

The  other  was  the  passage,  in  1862,  of  the  bill  for  the  estab- 
lishment of  scientific  educational  institutions  in  every  State. 

*  Proc.  Amer.  Assoc.  Adv.  Sci.,  vi,  xlviii. 


84  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

The  agricultural  colleges  were  then,  as  they  still  are,  unpopular 
among  many  scientific  men,  but  the  wisdom  of  the  measure  is 
apparently  before  long  to  be  justified. 

Before  the  end  of  the  decade,  the  Northern  States*  had  begun  a 
career  of  renewed  prosperity,  and  the  scientific  institutions  were 
reorganized.  The  leading  spirits  were  such  men  as  Pierce, 
Henry,  Agassiz,  Gray,  Barnard,  the  Goulds,  Newberry,  Lea, 
Whittlesey,  Foster,  Rood,  Cooke,  Newcomb,  Newton,  Wy- 
man,  Winchell. 

Among  the  rising  men,  some  of  them  very  prominent  before 
1870,  were  Barker,  Bolton,  Chandler,  Eggleston,  Hall,  Hark- 
ness,  Langley,  Mayer,  Pickering,  Young,  Powell,  Pumpelly, 
Abbe,  Collett,  Emerson,  Hartt,  Lupton,  Marsh,  Whitfield, 
Williams,  N.  H.  Winchell,  Agassiz,  the  Aliens,  Beale,  Cope, 
Coues,  Canby,  Dall,  Hoy,  Hyatt,  Morse,  Orton,  Perkins,  Rey, 
Riley,  Scudder,  Sidney  Smith,  Stearns,  Turtle,  Verrill,  Wood. 

Soon  after  the  war  the  surveys  of  the  West,  which  have  coa- 
lesced to  form  the  U.  S.  Geological  Survey,  were  forming  under 
the  direction  of  Clarence  Cook,  Lieut.  Wheeler,  F.  V.  Hay  den, 
and  Major  Powell. 

The  discovery  of  the  nature  of  the  corona  of  the  sun  by  Young 
and  Harkness  in  1869  was  an  event  encouraging  to  the  rising 
spirits  of  our  workers. 

XVIII. 

With  1869  we  reach  the  end  of  the  third  period  and  the  thresh- 
old of  that  in  which  we  are  living.  I  shall  not  attempt  to  define 
the  characteristics  of  the  natural  history  of  to-day,  though  I  wish 
to  direct  attention  to  certain  tendencies  and  conditions  which 
exist.  Let  me,  however,  refer  once  more  to  the  past,  since  it 
leads  again  directly  up  to  the  present. 

*  See  A  D  WHITE'S  Scientific  and  Industrial  Education  in  the  United 
States.  <  Popular  Science  Monthly,  v,  p.  170. 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  85 

In  a  retrospect  published  in  1876,*  one  of  our  leaders  stated 
that  American  science  during  the  first  forty  years  of  the  present 
century  was  in  u  a  state  of  general  lethargy,  broken  now  and 
then  by  the  activity  of  some  first-class  man,  which,  however, 
commonly  ceased  to  be  directed  into  purely  scientific  channels." 
This  depiction  was,  no  doubt,  somewhat  true  of  the  physical 
and  mathematical  sciences  concerned,  but  not  to  the  extent  indi- 
cated by  the  writer  quoted.  What  could  be  more  unjust  to  the 
men  of  the  last  generation  than  this?  "  It  is,"  continues  he, 
"  strikingly  illustrative  of  the  absence  of  everything  like  an 
effective  national  pride  in  science  that  two  generations  should 
have  passed  without  America  having  produced  anything  to  con- 
tinue the  philosophical  researches  of  Franklin." 

I  may  not  presume  to  criticise  the  opinion  of  the  writer  from 
whom  these  words  are  quoted,  but  I  cannot  resist  the  tempta- 
tion to  repeat  a  paragraph  from  Prof.  John  W.  Draper's  eloquent 
centennial  address  upon  "  Science  in  America  :" 

"  In  many  of  the  addresses  on  the  centennial  occasion."  he 
said,  "  the  shortcomings  of  the  United  States  in  extending  the 
boundaries  of  scientific  knowledge,  especially  in  the  physical  and 
chemical  departments,  have  been  set  forth.  '  We  must  acknowl- 
edge with  shame  our  inferiority  to  other  people,'  says  one.  '  We 
have  done  nothing,'  says  another.  *  *  *  But  we  must  not 
forget  that  many  of  these  humiliating  accusations  are  made  by 
persons  who  are  not  of  authority  in  the  matter ;  who,  because 
they  are  ignorant  of  what  has  been  done,  think  that  nothing 
has  been  done.  They  mistake  what  is  merely  a  blank  in  their 
own  information  for  a  blank  in  reality.  In  their  alacrity  to  de- 
preciate the  merit  of  their  own  country  they  would  have  us  confess 
that,  for  the  last  century,  we  have  been  living  on  the  reputation 
of  Franklin  and  his  thunder-rod." 

These  are  the  words  of  one  who,  himself  an  Englishman  by 
birth,  could,  with  excellent  grace,  upbraid  our  countrymen  for 
their  lack  of  patriotism. 

The   early  American  naturalists  have  been  reproached  for  de- 

*  North  American  Review. 


86  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

voting  their  time  to  explorations  and  descriptive  natural  history, 
and  their  work  depreciated,  as  being  of  a  character  beneath  the 
dignity  of  the  biologists  of  to-day. 

"  The  zoological  science  of  the  country,"  said  the  president  of 
the  Natural  History  Section  of  the  American  Association  a  few 
years  since,  "-presents  itself  in  two  distinct  periods:  The  first 
period  may  be  recognized  as  embracing  the  lowest  stages  of  the 
science  ;  it  included,  among  others,  a  class  of  men  who  busied 
themselves  in  taking  an  inventory  of  the  animals  of  the  country, 
an  important  and  necessary  wrork  to  be  compared  to  that  of  the 
hewers  and  diggers  who  first  settle  a  new  country,  but  in  their 
work  demanded  no  deep  knowledge  or  breadth  of  view." 

It  is  quite  unnecessary  to  defend  systematic  zoology  from  such 
slurs  as  this,  nor  do  I  believe  that  the  writer  quoted  would  really 
defend  the  ideas  which  his  words  seem  to  convey,  although,  as 
Professor  Judd  has  regretfully  confessed  in  his  recent  address 
before  the  Geological  Society  of  London,  systematic  zoologists 
and  botanists  have  become  somewhat  rare  and  out  of  fashion  in 
Europe  in  modern  times. 

The  best  vindication  of  the  wisdom  of  our  early  writers  will 
be,  I  think,  the  presentation  of  a  counter-quotation  from  another 
presidential  address,  that  of  the  venerable  Dr.  Bentham  before 
the  Linnaean  Society  of  London,  in  1867: 

"It  is  scarcely  half  a  century,"  wrote  Bentham,  "since  our 
American  brethren  applied  themselves  in  earnest  to  the  in- 
vestigation of  the  natural  productions  and  physical  condition  of 
their  vast  continent ;  their  progress,  especially  during  the  latter 
half  of  that  period,  had  been  very  rapid  until  the  outbreak  of  the 
recent  war,  so  deplorable  in  its  effects  in  the  interests  of  science 
as  well  as  on  the  material  prosperity  of  their  country.  The  pe- 
culiar condition  of  the  North  American  Continent  requires  im- 
peratively that  its  physical  and  biological  statistics  should  be  ac- 
curately collected  and  authentically  recorded,  and  that  this  should 
be  speedily  done.  It  is  more  than  any  country,  except  our  Aus- 
tralian colonies,  in  a  state  of  transition.  Vast  tracts  of  land  are 
still  in  what  may  be  called  almost  a  primitive  state,  unmodified 
by  the  effects  of  civilization,  uninhabited,  or  tenanted  only  by  the 
remnants  of  ancient  tribes,  whose  unsettled  life  never  exercised 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  87 

much  influence  over  the  natural  productions  of  the  country.  But 
this  state  of  things  is  rapidly  passing  away  ;  the  invasion  and 
steady  progress  of  a  civilized  population,  whilst  changing  gen- 
erally the  face  of  nature,  is  obliterating  many  of  the  evidences 
of  a  former  state  of  things.  It  may  be  true  that  the  call  for  re- 
cording the  traces  of  previous  conditions  may  be  particularly 
strong  in  Ethnology  and  Archaeology  ;  but  in  our  own  branches 
of  the  science,  the  observations  and  consequent  theories  of  Dar- 
win having  called  special  attention  to  the  history  of  species,  it 
becomes  particularly  important  that  accurate  biological  statistics 
should  be  obtained  for  future  comparison  in  those  countries 
where  the  circumstances  influencing  those  conditions  are  the  most 
rapidly  changing.  The  larger  races  of  wild  animals  are  dwin- 
dling down,  like  the  aboriginal  inhabitants,  under  the  deadly  in- 
fluence of  civilized  man.  Myriads  of  the  lower  orders  of  animal 
life,  as  well  .as  of  plants,  disappear  with  the  destruction  of  forests, 
the  drainage  of  swamps,  and  the  gradual  spread  of  cultivation, 
and  their  places  are  occupied  by  foreign  invaders.  Other  races, 
no  doubt,  without  actually  disappearing,  undergo  a  gradual  change 
under  the  new  order  of  things,  which,  if  perceptible  only  in  the 
course  of  successive  generations,  require  so  much  the  more  for 
future  proof  an  accurate  record  of  their  state  in  the  still  unsettled 
condition  of  the  country.  In  the  Old  World  almost  every  at- 
tempt to  compare  the  present  state  of  vegetation  or  animal  life 
with  that  which  existed  in  uncivilized  times  is  in  a  great  meas- 
ure frustrated  by  the  absolute  want  of  evidence  as  to  that  former 
state ;  but  in  North  America  the  change  is  going  forward,  as  it 
were,  close  under  the  eye  of  the  observer.  This  consideration 
may  one  day  give  great  value  to  the  reports  of  the  naturalist  sent 
by  the  Government,  as  we  have  seen,  at  the  instigation  of  the 
Smithsonian  Institution  and  other  promoters  of  science,  to  ac- 
company the  surveys  of  new  territories." 

Having  said  this  much  in  defence  of  the  scientific  men  of  the 
United  States,  I  wish,  in  conclusion,  to  prefer  some  very  serious 
charges  against  the  country  at  large,  or,  rather,  as  a  citizen  of 
the  United  States,  to  make  some  very  melancholy  and  humili- 
ating confessions. 

The  present  century  is  often  spoken  of  as  "  the  age  of  science,'* 
and  Americans  are  somewhat  disposed  to  be  proud  of  the  mannei 
in  which  scientific  institutions  are  fostered  and  scientific  investi- 
gators encouraged  on  this  side  of  the  Atlantic. 

Our  countrymen  have  made  very  important  advances  in  many 


88  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

departments  of  research.  We  have  a  few  admirably  organized 
laboratories  and  observatories,  a  few  good  collections  of  scientific 
books,  six  or  eight  museums  worthy  of  the  name,  and  a  score  or 
more  of  scientific  and  technological  schools,  well  organized  and 
better  provided  with  officers  than  with  money.  We  have  several 
strong  scientific  societies,  no  one  of  which,  however,  publishes 
transactions  worthy  of  its  own  standing  and  the  collective  reputa- 
tion of  its  members.  In  fact,  the  combined  publishing  funds  of  all 
our  societies  would  not  pay  for  the  annual  issue  of  a  volume  of 
memoirs,  such  as  appears  under  the  auspices  of  any  one  of  a  dozen 
European  societies  which  might  be  named. 

Our  Government,  by  a  liberal  support  of  its  scientific  depart- 
ments, has  done  much  to  atone  for  the  really  feeble  manner  in 
which  local  institutions  have  been  maintained.  The  Coast  Sur- 
vey, the  Geological  Surveys,  the  Department  of  Agriculture,  the 
Fish  Commissions,  the  Army,  with  its  Meteorological  Bureau,  its 
Medical  Museum  and  Library,  and  its  explorations ;  the  Navy, 
with  its  Observatory,  its  laboratories  and  its  explorations  ;  and  in 
addition  to  these,  the  Smithsonian  Institution,  with  its  systematic 
promotion  of  all  good  works  in  science,  have  accomplished  more 
than  is  ordinarily  placed  to  their  credit.  Many  hundreds  of  vol- 
umes of  scientific  memoirs  have  been  issued  from  the  Government 
printing  office  since  1870,  and  these  have  been  distributed  in  such 
a  generous  and  far-reaching  way  that  they  have  not  failed  to  reach 
every  town  and  village  in  the  United  States  where  a  roof  has  been 
provided  to  protect  them. 

It  may  be  that  some  one  will  accuse  the  Government  of  having 
usurped  the  work  of  the  private  publisher.  Very  little  of  value 
in  the  way  of  scientific  literature  has  been  issued  during  the  same 
period  by  publishers,  except  in  reprints  or  translations  of  works 
of  foreign  investigators.  It  should  be  borne  in  mind,  however, 
that  our  Government  has  not  only  published  the  results  of  investi- 
gations, but  has  supported  the  investigators  and  provided  them 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  89 

with  laboratories,  instruments  and  material,  and  that  the  me- 
moirs which  it  has  issued  would  never,  as  a  rule,  have  been  ac- 
cepted by  private  publishers. 

I  do  not  wish  to  underrate  the  efficiency  of  American  men  of 
science,  nor  the  enthusiasm  with  which  many  public  men  and  cap- 
italists have  promoted  our  scientific  institutions.  Our  countrymen 
have  had  wonderful  successes  in  many  directions.  They  have 
borne  their  share  in  the  battle  of  science  against  the  unknown. 
They  have  had  abundant  recognition  from  their  fellow-workers 
in  the  Old  World.  They  have  met  perhaps  a  more  intelligent 
appreciation  abroad  than  at  home.  It  is  the  absence  of  home  ap- 
preciation that  causes  us  very  much  foreboding  for  the  future. 

In  Boston  or  Cambridge,  in  New  York,  Philadelphia,  Bal- 
timore, Washington,  Chicago,  or  San  Francisco,  and  in  most  of 
the  college  towns,  a  man  interested  in  science  may  find  others 
ready  to  talk  over  with  him  a  new  scientific  book,  or  a  discovery 
which  has  excited  his  interest.  Elsewhere,  the  chances  are,  he 
will  have  to  keep  his  thoughts  to  himself.  One  may  quickly  re- 
cite the  names  of  the  towns  and  cities  in  which  may  be  found  ten 
or  more  people  whose  knowledge  of  any  science  is  aught  than 
vague  and  rudimentary.  Let  me  illustrate  my  idea  by  supposing 
that  every  inhabitant  of  the  United  States,  over  fifteen  years  of 
age,  should  be  required  to  mention  ten  living  men  eminent  in  sci- 
entific work,  would  one  out  of  a  hundred  be  able  to  respond? 
Does  any  one  suppose  that  there  are  three  or  four  hundred  thou- 
sand people  enlightened  to  this  degree  ? 

Let  us  look  at  some  statistics,  or,  rather,  some  facts,  which 
it  is  convenient  to  arrange  in  statistical  form.  The  total  number 
of  white  inhabitants  of  the  United  States  in  1880  was  about  forty- 
two  millions.  The  total  number  of  naturalists,  as  shown  in  the 
Naturalist's  Directory  for  1886,  was  a  little  over  4,600.  This 
list  includes  not  only  the  investigators,  who  probably  do  not  ex- 
ceed five  hundred  in  number,  and  the  advanced  teachers,  who 


90  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

muster,  perhaps,  one  thousand  strong,  but  all  who  are  sufficiently 
interested  in  science  to  have  selected  special  lines  of  study. 

We  have,  then,  one  person  interested  in  science  to  about  ten 
thousand  inhabitants.  But  the  leaven  of  science  is  not  evenly  dis- 
tributed through  the  national  loaf.  It  is  the  tendency  of  scientific 
men  to  congregate  together.  In  Washington,  for  instance,  there 
is  one  scientific  man  to  every  500  inhabitants,  in  Cambridge  one 
to  850,  and  in  New  Haven  one  to  1,100.  In  New  Orleans  the 
proportion  is  one  to  8,800,  in  Jersey  City  one  to  24,000,  in  New 
York  one  to  7,000,  and  in  Brooklyn  one  to  8,500.  I  have  before 
me  the  proportions  worked  out  for  the  seventy-five  principal  cities 
of  the  United  States.  The  showing  is  suggestive,  though  no  doubt 
in  some  instances  misleading.  The  tendency  to  gregariousness 
on  the  part  of  scientific  men  may,  perhaps,  be  further  illustrated  by 
a  reference  to  certain  societies.  The  membership  of  the  National 
Academy  of  Sciences  is  almost  entirely  concentrated  about  Bos- 
ton, New  York,  Philadelphia,  Washington  and  New  Haven. 
Missouri  has  one  member,  Illinois  one,  Ohio  one,  Maryland,  New- 
Jersey  and  Rhode  Island  three,  and  California  four — while  thirty- 
two  States  and  Territories  are  not  represented.  A  precisely  sim- 
ilar distribution  of  members  is  found  in  the  American  Society  of 
Naturalists.  A  majority  of  the  members  of  the  American  Associ- 
ation for  the  Advancement  of  Science  live  in  New  York,  Massa- 
chusetts, Pennsylvania,  the  District  of  Columbia,  Michigan,  Min- 
nesota, Ohio,  Illinois  and  New  Jersey. 

It  has  been  stated  that  the  average  proportion  of  scientific 
men  to  the  population  at  large  is  one  to  ten  thousand.  A  more 
minute  examination  shows  that  while  fifteen  of  the  States  and  Ter- 
ritories have  more  than  the  average  proportion  of  scientific  men, 
thirty-two  have  less.  Oregon  and  California,  Michigan  and  Del- 
aware have  very  nearly  the  normal  number.  Massachusetts, 
Rhode  Island,  Connecticut,  Illinois,  Colorado  and  Florida  have 
about  one  to  four  thousand.  West  Virginia,  Nevada,  Arkansas, 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  91 

Mississippi,  Georgia,  Kentucky,  Texas,  Alabama  and  the  Caro- 
linas  are  the  ones  least  liberally  furnished.  Certain  cities  appear 
to  be  absolutely  without  scientific  men.  The  worst  cases  of  des- 
titution seem  to  be  Paterson,  New  Jersey,  a  city  of  50,000  in- 
habitants, Wheeling,  with  30,000,  Qiiincy,  Illinois,  with  26,000, 
Newport,  Kentucky,  with  20,000,  Williamsport,  Pennsylvania, 
and  Kingston,  New  York,  with  18,000,  Council  Bluffs,  Iowa, 
and  Zanesville,  Ohio,  with  17,000,  Oshkosh  and  Sandusky,  with 
15,000,  Lincoln,  Rhode  Island,  Norwalk,  Connecticut,  and 
Brockton  and  Pittsfield,  Massachusetts,  with  13,000.  In  these 
there  are  no  men  of  science  recorded,  and  eight  cities  of  more 
than  15,000  inhabitants  have  only  one,  namely,  Omaha,  Ne- 
braska, and  St.  Joseph,  Missouri,  Chelsea,  Massachusetts,  Co- 
hoes,  New  York,  Sacramento,  California,  Binghamton,  New 
York,  Portland,  Oregon,  and  Leadville,  Colorado. 

Of  course  these  statistical  statements  are  not  properly  statis- 
tics. I  have  no  doubt  that  some  of  these  cities  are  misrepresented 
in  wrhat  has  been  said.  This  much,  however,  is  probably  true, 
that  not  one  of  them  has  a  scientific  society,  a  museum,  a  school 
of  science,  or  a  sufficient  number  of  scientific  men  to  insure  even 
the  occasional  delivery  of  a  course  of  scientific  lectures. 

Studying  the  distribution  of  scientific  societies,  we  find  that 
there  are  fourteen  States  and  Territories  in  w^hich  there  are  no  sci- 
entific societies  whatever.  There  are  fourteen  States  which  have 
State  academies  of  science  or  societies  which  are  so  organized  as 
to  be  equivalent  to  State  academies. 

Perhaps  the  most  discouraging  feature  of  all  is  the  diminutive 
circulation  of  scientific  periodicals.  In  addition  to  a  certain  num- 
ber of  specialists'  journals,  we  have  in  the  United  States  three 
which  are  wide  enough  in  scope  to  be  necessary  to  all  who  attempt 
to  keep  an  abstract  of  the  progress  of  science.  Of  these,  the  Amer- 
ican Journal  of  Science  has,  we  are  told,  a  circulation  of  less  than 
Soo  ;  the  American  Naturalist*  less  than  1,100,  and  Science*  less 


92  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

than  6,000.  A  considerable  proportion  of  the  copies  printed  go, 
as  a  matter  of  course,  to  public  institutions,  and  not  to  individuals. 
Even  the  Popular  Science  Monthly  and  the  Scientific  Ameri- 
can, which  appeal  to  large  classes  of  unscientific  readers,  have 
circulations  absurdly  small. 

The  most  effective  agents  for  the  dissemination  of  scientific 
intelligence  are,  probably,  the  religious  journals,  aided  to  some 
extent  by  the  agricultural  journals,  and  to  a  very  limited  degree 
by  the  weekly  and  daily  newspapers.  It  is  much  to  be  -regretted 
that  several  influential  journals,  which  ten  or  fifteen  years  ago 
gave  attention  to  the  publication  of  trustworthy  scientific  intelli- 
gence, have  of  late  almost  entirely  abandoned  the  effort.  The 
allusions  to  science  in  the  majority  of  our  newspapers  are  singu- 
larly inaccurate  and  unscholarly,  and  too  often  science  is  referred 
to  only  when  some  of  its  achievements  offer  opportunity  for  witti- 
cism. 

The  statements  which  I  have  just  made  may,  as  I  have  said, 
prove,  in  some  instances  erroneous,  and,  to  some  extent,  mislead- 
ing, but  I  think  the  general  tendency  of  a  careful  study  of  the  dis- 
tribution of  scientific  men  and  institutions  is  to  show  that  the  peo- 
ple of  the  United  States,  except  in  so  far  as  they  sanction  by  their 
approval  the  work  of  the  scientific  departments  of  the  Government, 
and  the  institutions  established  by  private  munificence,  have  little 
reason  to  be  proud  of  the  national  attitude  toward  science. 

I  am,  however,  by  no  means  despondent  for  the  future.  The 
importance  of  scientific  work  is  thoroughly  appreciated,  and  it 
is  well  understood  that  many  important  public  duties  can  be  per- 
formed properly  only  by  trained  men  of  science.  The  claims  of 
science  to  a  prominent  place  in  every  educational  plan  are  every 
year  more  fully  conceded.  Science  is  permeating  the  theory  and 
the  practice  of  every  art  and  every  industry,  as  well  as  every  de- 
partment of  learning.  The  greatest  danger  to  science  is,  per- 
haps, the  fact  that  all  who  have  studied  at  all  within  the 


PRESIDENTIAL    ADDRESS.  93 

last  quarter  of  a  century  have  studied  its  rudiments  and  feel 
competent  to  employ  its  methods  and  its  language,  and  to  form 
judgments  on  the  merits  of  current  work. 

In  the  meantime  the  professional  men  of  science,  the  scholars, 
and  the  investigators  seem  to  me  to  be  strangely  indifferent  to  the 
questions  as  to  how  the  public  at  large  is  to  be  made  familiar 
with  the  results  of  their  labors.  It  may  be  that  the  tendency  to 
specialization  is  destined  to  deprive  the  sciences  of  their  former 
hold  upon  popular  interest,  and  that  the  study  of  zoology,  bot- 
any and  geology,  mineralogy  and  chemistry  will  become  so 
technical  that  each  will  require  the  exclusive  attention  of  its 
votaries  for  a  period  of  years.  It  may  be  that  we  are  to  have  no 
more  zoologists  such  as  Agassiz  and  Baird,  no  more  botanists 
such  as  Gray,  and  that  the  place  which  such  men  filled  in  the 
community  will  be  supplied  by  combinations  of  a  number  of 
specialists,  each  of  whom  knows,  with  more  minuteness,  limited 
portions  of  the  subjects  grasped  bodily  by  the  masters  of  the  last 
generation.  It  may  be  that  the  use  of  the  word  naturalist  is  to 
became  an  anachronism,  and  that  we  are  all  destined  to  become, 
generically  biologists,  and,  specifically,  morphologists,  histologists, 
embryologists,  physiologists,  or,  it  may  be,  cetologists,  chirop- 
terologists,  oologists,  carcinologists,  ophiologists,  helmintholo- 
gists,  actinologists,  coleopterists,  caricoologists,  mycologists, 
muscologists,  bacteriologists,  diatomologists,  paleo-botanists,  crys- 
tallographers,  petrologists,  and  the  like. 

I  can  but  believe,  however,  that  it  is  the  duty  of  every  sci- 
entific scholar,  however  minute  his  specialty,  to  resist  in  himself, 
and  in  the  professional  circles  which  surround  him,  the  tendency 
toward  narrowing  technicality  in  thought  and  sympathy,  and 
above  all  in  the  education  of  non-professional  students. 

I  cannot  resist  the  feeling  that  American  men  of  science  are 
in  a  large  degree  responsible  if  their  fellow-citizens  are  not 
fully  awake  to  the  claims  of  scientific  endeavor  in  their  midst. 


94  BIOLOGICAL    SOCIETY    OF    WASHINGTON. 

I  am  not  in  sympathy  with  those  who  feel  that  their  dignity 
is  lowered  when  their  investigations  lead  toward  improvement 
in  the  physical  condition  of  mankind,  but  I  feel  that  the  highest 
function  of  science  is  to  minister  to  their  mental  and  moral  wel- 
fare. Here  in  the  United  States,  more  than  in  any  other  country, 
it  is  necessary  that  sound,  accurate  knowledge  and  a  scientific 
manner  of  thought  should  exist  among  the  people,  and  the  man 
of  science  is  becoming,  more  than  ever,  the  natural  custodian  of 
the  treasured  knowledge  of  the  world.  To  him,  above  all  oth- 
ers, falls  the  duty  of  organizing  and  maintaining  the  institutions 
for  the  diffusion  of  knowledge,  many  of  which  have  been  spoken 
of  in  these  addresses — the  schools,  the  museums,  the  expositions, 
the  societies,  the  periodicals.  To  him,  more  than  to  any  other 
American,  should  be  made  familiar  the  words  of  President 
Washington  in  his  farewell  address  to  the  American  people  : 

"PROMOTE,  THEN,  AS  AN  OBJECT  or  PRIMARY  IMPORTANCE, 

INSTITUTIONS  FOR  THE  GENERAL  DIFFUSION  OF  KNOWLEDGE. 
IN  PROPORTION  AS  THE  STRUCTURE  OF  A  GOVERNMENT  GIVES 
FORCE  TO  PUBLIC  OPINIONS  IT  SHOULD  BE  ENLIGHTENED. 


